The Friday Link for 9/22/23

Hey all! I hope you had a nice week.

I have recently been fascinated by something I never really thought about before. After the 13 colonies won their freedom, how exactly did they get to the point of electing the first President, George Washington? Sure, it's easy to say "Well duh, he was the obvious choice to lead the country, but it's not like the fledgling country even had a concept of what the President would be, or even how the President would be picked.

Heck, my guess is most people are somewhat ill-informed about how Presidential elections work today (even though we have gotten a bit of a history lesson from Trump's attempts to overthrow the government).  On Election Day every four years we do not elect a President, but rather your state's electors, who then themselves go and vote for the President in December.  For the most part the electors back up the will of their state's voters...for the most part.

Tonight for you, two videos from a YouTube historian The Premodernist.  First, he talks about the long weird path to the first-ever Presidential Election in the US.

Next up is another longer video but a thorough one, where The Premodernist talks about how they had to convince Washington to run for a second term.  A lot of that has to do with the new leaders of the country squabbling amongst themselves on what path should the country take forward. 

Have a great weekend everyone!  Make sure to get your COVID shots and your flu shots!