In his blog titled, The Electoral College is in Jeopardy on Texas Scorecard, conservative blogger Matt Stringer argues that the Electoral College is being attacked but should be protected. His audience is fairly clear since it is a conservative blog source. However what makes it clearer is the inflammatory and unnecessary language to prove his point. He calls attacks against the Electoral College as a devious plot and that the framers would agree. To the first point, it is pretty obvious that opinions on other solutions aren’t ‘devious plots,’ rather they are criticisms. It isn’t a bad thing to step back and ask if what we’re doing is working. 

Secondly, the question shouldn’t be whether they would agree or not. The question should be are they wrong or right. The fact of the matter is that the framers got some things absolutely wrong. We saw that when Jefferson and Adams ran against each other a second time, they had to immediately fix the ballot system using the 12^thamendment. We had to fix the entire way we look at a class of people with the 14^th  and 15^thamendments to allow them to be a part of the political process. Then the 17^thamendments also restated the fact that we need to look hard at how we elect certain individuals, specifically the direct election of senators. To say that reevaluating our system of government is un-American is completely false. What makes America great is that we have systems that allow for change and can admit when we did wrong. 

The substance of course is not important here, he makes the argument that the Electoral College is a check on federal power and protects large rural areas like a lot of Texas, which makes sense. However, should the small rural areas really have more political power if more people are living in large cities? Should it be minority rule, a president who lost the popular vote wins? 

In the article, titled, The Crisis at the Border, Congressman Roger Williams of the 25thDistrict of Texas argues that there is a crisis at the border and that the US Congress has failed to respond to the crisis, specifically blaming Democrats. It is fairly clear that his audience is his own party. He already starts the assumption that the border issue is a crisis. When it comes to credibility, it isn’t really an issue of whether he is credible or not. He is a politician, so he will simply say what his constituents want of him. Whether it is right or not, that’s a question of content. It is hard to place credibility on ideology, that’s simply his belief, if we knew where he got his facts, maybe we could look at his credibility. I would be inclined to disagree with him, however he provides very little logic or facts and simply blames democrats with no basis. Furthermore, it doesn’t sound like logic is involved at all. He even makes the statement that he is willing to support, ANY proposal Trump would bring. That’s a very broad invitation, you have to wonder if he has any kind of opinion of his own. Even the most damning number he provides works to his disadvantage. He says over 300,000 people were detained at ports of entry. If the border patrol is detaining people at the border that sounds like they’re doing their job and no other proposals are necessary based on his argument. It is clear he is making statements just to play on emotions. To say that “democrats hate the president more than they love their country has so many flaws with it.” It is a one liner that perhaps a young conservative would cling to and think is brilliant, but in reality, it is completely absurd to generalize an entire ideology that has an extensive spectrum within itself. There are numerous flaws but it is perhaps better to summarize it by saying that it is very opinion based.