Chris Hayes is expected to make inane comments and he never disappoints.
The most recent by the MSNBC host is that if the Electoral College were not in the constitution, it would be unconstitutional. Using that logic, if the Thirteenth Amendment did not exist, abolishing slavery would be unconstitutional. But, that amendment was added to do away with a truly heinous system in our country.
By the same token, the Electoral College was added in order to get all the states to agree to come together to form our great nation. At that time, Virginia and Pennsylvania along with New York could have had complete control over the country and states like South Carolina and Delaware would have refused to ratify the constitution. They wanted everyone to have a voice while still giving the larger states a bigger say via more electoral votes.
These days, conservatism is a movement deeply paranoid and pessimistic about its own appeal, increasingly retreating behind counter-majoritarian institutions: the senate, the courts, the electoral college.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 1, 2019
And so they are increasingly focused, as a matter of tactical and tribal fidelity, on ways to uphold minority rule. It’s a sad place for a movement to be.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 1, 2019
On his MSNBC show Friday, Hayes attempted to make the case that the Electoral College — the system established by the Founding Fathers to elect the president — is undemocratic.
“The weirdest thing about the electoral college is the fact that if it wasn’t specifically in the Constitution for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional,” Hayes said.
Hayes’ point was this: Beginning in the 1960s, the Supreme Court “started developing a jurisprudence of ‘one person, one vote'” to ensure equal civil rights for white and black Americans. But the Electoral College undermines this equality because each individual vote does not carry equal weight.
Such a system can be racially exploited, Hayes charged, providing an example of a majority black city being governed by a majority white city council.