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The Electoral College pt. 2 · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we Do? Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we Do.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I am yours Squeaking by Within the margin of Error
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: host Abraham.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: And I am your swing host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about all of
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: the things that people do and feel and behave, and
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: what animals do sometimes and maybe plants here and there,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: and sometimes we talk about the systems that people have
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: put into place that are just they're bad. They're bad
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: at being systems.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and also they name them bad because this is
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  Speaker 3: not a college.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: No correct. Yeah. This is the second part in a
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  Speaker 2: two part arc we are doing talking about something that
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: humans do called the electoral college. Part due electoral boogaloo.
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  Speaker 3: It makes me laugh too. I wrote that and it
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: still makes me laugh like that.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: All credit to Shane for that awesome joke. That this
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: has been making me chuckle for like over a week anyway.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So if you're joining us for the first time here
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: and you may want to go back and check out
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: that first episode in it, let's do a quick recap
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: of what we talked about. We mostly went over the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: history of the electoral college, as well as going over
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: some specific examples and there's only been a handful in
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  Speaker 2: which the candidate who won the popular vote or lost
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: the popular vote, I mean, still became the President of
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  Speaker 2: the United States.
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  Speaker 3: To some all that up there are a lot of
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  Speaker 3: kind of interlocking, strange systems and voting processes that could
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: mean that somebody that most people don't like, or at
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  Speaker 3: least a good majority of people don't like. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we could even say three million people don't like could
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  Speaker 3: still be the President of the United States exactly.
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  Speaker 2: That that did happen, and it is happening with increasing
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: frequency right now, at least it seems to have been
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: going that way. So it was worth digging into what
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the system is and why it's allowing something like that
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: to happen. And I think that was mostly sort of
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: unpacking history last time, and so this discussion is going
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: to instead be talking about the arguments that people make
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  Speaker 2: for and against the continuation of the system and what,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: if anything, we can do about it. So first, it
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: is August twenty eighth, which means Happy National Cherry Turnover Day.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: If you're into pastries and snacks.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Love pastries. That's my problem. That's why my nutrition is
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: so mad at me right now. It's also National bow
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Tie Day, which I cannot wear because ties make me gag.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I learned how to tie a bowtie. It's actually not
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: terribly difficult.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not surprised that you would have that skill. I mean,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I love that, I love that you do, but I
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: am not surprised that you have that skill.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I'll take that as a compliment.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it absolutely is.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, great. It is International Read Comics and Public Day
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: and private too if you want to, I guess, yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Don't be ashamed. It's Dream Day.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Interesting. It is Crackers over the Keyboard Day. Mostly what
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: they're recommending here is turn your computer upside down or
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: your keyboard upside down and shake the crumbs out of it,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: or get the compressed air can and spray the crumbs
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: out of it, or just don't eat food on your keyboard.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good idea. I like that. It is National Power
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Rangers Day.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So no sweet Power Rangers, which.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Has the most nineties theme song I've ever heard it.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Really, Yes, it is archetype of Nineties theme songs.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: It is race your mouse around the Icon's Day, and
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: by mouse I mean computer mouse like a track pad
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: or something. And I guess just zip around your screen
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: for some reason.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's radio commercials Day, which you know, I'm fine
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: with them until it's the ones with the police sirens
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: in the background, and then I get really worried.
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  Speaker 2: That is a terrible idea for radio commercial Oh man,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: so mean, oh jeez. All right. It is red wine
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Day unless you're a white wine drinker, and then it's
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: no wine Day.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's fine. I guess if you like
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: old grapes too, It's a tongue of war day.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Willing to lend a hand Wednesday. That's lovely,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: very nice.
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  Speaker 3: I like that. It's National Composits Day if you like
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: composite materials.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Composits Week.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Actually, I'm sorry, it's week, the whole week.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: The whole week. Yeah, this is a celebrating and bringing
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: awareness to the fact that we build stuff. I guess sure.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: It is be kind to Humankind Week. And I mean
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I feel like if anything is a theme of our
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: values on this show, that is it.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: That is the one thing. That's what Kurt Vonnegut says.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: If I know one rule, then god damn it, you've
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: got to be kind. It is Break safety.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Week, like taking breaks from work.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Well that too, maybe. I mean, if you want to,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: you want to, but I think mostly just making sure
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: your car works, or your bike works, or your unicycle. Well,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: unicycles don't have breaks.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Usually whatever vehicle that moves and needs to come to
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: a stop somehow.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, whatever you need to use to stop your wheels.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Sure. It is Health Unit Coordinators Week. That sounds very important.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: That does sound very important. It's National Safe at Home Week,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: which everybody should feel safe at home.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been waiting for that one.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: It is World Water Week. We all get water this week. Congratulations. Yay,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: first quenched thirst quenched. Okay, Now, as I mentioned, although
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: we do like to celebrate these holidays, or at least
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: acknowledge them briefly at the top of our discussions, we
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: are actually here to talk about the electoral College. If
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: you have already been with us, we're happy you are
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: continuing on. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: We're happy to have you. If you like what you
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: hear today and you would like to support us, you
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: can head over to our Patreon. There you'll get access
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: to some bonus content. You can always leave us a
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: rating and review, like, and subscribe. Pick up some merch
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: or go tell a friend, or destroy the electoral College
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: and say that we inspired you to do it, and
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: we would be very proud of that legacy. Yes, but
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: let's instead start with the arguments that people make for
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: keeping the system as it currently exists in the electoral College.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And I guess before we even jump into that, let's
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: do because I sort of did a brief recap over
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: what we discussed in the last episode. But in case
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: people are joining us for the first time and do
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: not feel inclined to go check out that last one,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: or just in case you need a quick refresher, let's
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: just give a really brief description of what the electoral
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: College is.
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  Speaker 3: The electoral College is not a place, and it is
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: certainly not a college and the university sense. Basically, what
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: it is is a group of people that elect the
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  Speaker 3: president of the United States based on a lot of
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: strange rules in every state. And ultimately what it is
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  Speaker 3: is like every state has a certain amount of electoral votes.
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  Speaker 3: They have points if we count them as points, if
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  Speaker 3: you want to say that, But every state, depending on
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  Speaker 3: their population and depending on how many representatives and how
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: many congressmen they have or Congress vote, I should say,
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  Speaker 3: they get points that are used to elect the next
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  Speaker 3: president in every presidential election.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So when we cast votes as citizens, what
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  Speaker 2: happens is that we have a winner takes all system
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  Speaker 2: for the state in which we live, and so whoever
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  Speaker 2: gets the most votes in that state will get that
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  Speaker 2: state's entire slate of electors to vote for that candidate.
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  Speaker 2: No matter how close the margin was, whoever got the most,
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  Speaker 2: it could be by one single vote, that person gets
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: the entire slate of electors. As you said, they get
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  Speaker 2: one for every congress person that they have, which means
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  Speaker 2: two for the senators, and then however many from Congress people.
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  Speaker 2: This means that the smallest number of electors a state
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  Speaker 2: can have as three, and it also means that there's
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  Speaker 2: really heavily gives much, much, much, much more voting power
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  Speaker 2: to states with small populations, because states with large populations,
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  Speaker 2: although they do have more House of Representative members, they
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  Speaker 2: do not have more senators. And states with small populations
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  Speaker 2: have a minimum of three electoral votes, even if they
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: have proportionally much smaller populations than some of their larger
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: population states nearby. Right, what tends to be the case then, well,
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  Speaker 2: in most of history, what has happened is whenever a
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  Speaker 2: candidate wins a state, they get all of that state's electors,
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  Speaker 2: and most of the time most of the votes go
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  Speaker 2: towards that candidate. That candidate gets most electors, that become
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  Speaker 2: the president. But in about five instances throughout history, there
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: have been times when the candidate lost the popular vote
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  Speaker 2: but happens to get enough votes from the electoral system
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  Speaker 2: that they became the president anyway, mostly because they were
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  Speaker 2: able to squeak by with the majority of votes in
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  Speaker 2: a and many many more small states, even though they
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  Speaker 2: didn't get the majority of votes in some of the
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: larger states. And that wasn't the case for all of them.
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  Speaker 2: Actually some of them. There were different reasons that the
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: person who won the popular vote did not get elected.
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  Speaker 2: But that's mostly or that is how it is mostly
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  Speaker 2: shaken out in the instances where the person who didn't
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: win the popular vote became the president anyway. I think
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that more or less rounds out the discussion of just
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: understanding how the electoral system works. So it's really not
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  Speaker 2: a place, it's a process, and as I said, it
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: tends to favor low population states, so let's get into
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: the arguments for why people think that we should keep
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  Speaker 2: this system in place.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, one of the most consistent arguments made in
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  Speaker 3: favor of the electoral college is that the decision to
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  Speaker 3: choose the president would rest in the hands of only
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  Speaker 3: the biggest cities and biggest states, making the voice of
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  Speaker 3: the less populated areas weaker when choosing the leader. So
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  Speaker 3: the concern is that more densely populated areas have more
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  Speaker 3: power than places that are less densely populated.
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  Speaker 2: Because there's more people there exactly right right now. We
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if you're hearing the rebuttal that we're
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: going to be forming in your mind already, but essentially,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: we're not gonna make our rebuttals now, We're going to
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: go through all the arguments, and then we're gonna go
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: through the counter arguments, and the counter arguments will make
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: many of our rebubtals. Yes, so we'll just let them
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: say what they're going to say. So that's one of
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: the arguments. It would put all this power in the
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  Speaker 2: hands of more populated areas, as Heritage dot Org put
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: it it, quote, would reshape our political landscape by concentrating
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  Speaker 2: power in our largest states and cities, the tribalism and
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  Speaker 2: mob rule of which the founders warned would be realized,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: and the voices of smaller states would become marginalized. End quote.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And that's their opinion that they have posted on their
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: website as their position on this.
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  Speaker 3: Yes. One source went so far as to point out
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  Speaker 3: that the Senate helps ensure that all states are represented
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  Speaker 3: equally by giving each state to senators, and the electoral
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  Speaker 3: college works exactly as intended. It makes it so that
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: just have the raw votes to win doesn't matter as
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: much as having a geological balance.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Geological balance, Yeah, that's definitely one key part of that sentence.
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  Speaker 2: The other that's that stands out to me is not
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  Speaker 2: just having the raw votes. Yes, we don't want that.
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  Speaker 2: We don't want to just have the votes.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Uh huh. We just want to make sure that the
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: bullet points are highlighted and bolded for you as as
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: we're talking about their arms.
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  Speaker 2: Imagine underline, highlighted, bold italics. Yes, we want to make
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: sure they don't win by just raw votes. They say, Okay, they.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Want geological they want land balance.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Land balance. Okay, all right, I want to continue, but
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: let's let's go on to our next point here. Sure
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: another argument Another similar argument is that in the electoral system,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: or without the electoral system, presidential candidates would only campaign
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: in the most populated areas and address issues relevant to
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: those larger areas, and would be less likely to campaign
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: for and address issues and less populated areas, And that
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: in this case, presidential candidates would then just ignore states
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: such as Maine and Vermont because they are not that
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: populous states that they don't have as large as of
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: a population as other states. That is an argument that
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: is also made, Okay.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Another argument, surprisingly is that the electoral college helps preserve
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: the two party system, which helps prevent a large number
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: of candidates from different parties being on the ballot. So
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: if you're ever worried about the two party system, that's
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: one of the arguments that's being made for the electoral college.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I think it's fun. Again, I'm trying to avoid
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: getting directly into counter arguments, but I.
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  Speaker 3: Try so hard.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you hear. The argument for keeping it is to
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: help preserve the two party system, And I'm like, an
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: argument for getting rid of it is because it helps
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: preserve the two party system. I think, right, we'll get there.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: We'll get there.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: We'll get there, we will land that plane. Don't worry.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: That's right, finding strength within all right, Moving on, one
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: source suggested that without the electoral college, a candidate could
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: win the votes of only a few of the states
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: with the largest population, winning not a single vote in
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: all of the other remaining states and still win the election.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Is essentially the arguments that they're making because of those
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the states with big populations.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Right right right. Some have pointed out that we just
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: have other bigger problems to worry about. The electoral system
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: is written into our constitution. This means that to change it,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: it would require a two third majority in both the
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Chamber of Congress, as well as ratification from three fourths
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of state legislators. The fact that this has been proposed
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: over seven hundred times without success shows how difficult it
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: will be to pass.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: That is a critical point, and we actually did mention
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: in the first episode. The reason part of the issue
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: here when they wrote the electoral college and they sort
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: of didn't really hammer out the details because there are
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: some nuanced things that have come up in this system.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Is we sort of made the joke that they were like, eh,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: good enough, I guess we'll figure out what happens. But
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: the way that they wrote it, because they made it
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: part of the constitution, is that to change it is
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: nearly impossible, not impossible, but nearly impossible.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Like it's it's very very hard.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Like how often do we get a two thirds majority
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: on anything in both chambers of Congress and then get
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: that ratified by three quarters of the states. Yeah, the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: time that we're in there is just not that much
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: agreement on any one issue. I think, no, almost never,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: almost never. Okay, we only have two more arguments to
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: cover in favor of this. Another for the electoral is
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: that other democracies around the world use electoral systems. So
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: it's not like using electoral college as totally without precedent,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: because you can find this in other democracies around the world.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So the argument that they do it so we
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: can do it too. If my friends jump off a bridge,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: I would go yeah. And the last argument is there is,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: of course, the quote this is the way we've always
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: done it argument. If you can call out an argument,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: and that's actually an argument that people make. We've always
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: done it like this. The country was founded on this,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: so why would we ever change it.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: That was actually kind of one of the points that
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Heritage dot Org made. They're like, this is this is
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the system we have in place. We've had it for
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: a long time. I'm like, right, we had slavery for
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: a long time. That wasn't a.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Good idea, Yeah, but we're able to get rid of that.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, you know we had mentioned before that
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: it is radio commercial's day and we're kind of radio
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: So here are some commercials. All right, let's get back
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: to our discussion here about the arguments for and against
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the Electoral College. And now we have concluded the part
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: where we try and with a straight face, make arguments
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: for the electoral college, and can now instead turn to
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: the I guess you call them rebuttals, arguments for eliminating
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the electoral college or against having that system at all.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Maybe just common sense is another way we could describe
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: the statements that we're about to make. But let's go
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: ahead and dive right in.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I call the section we get to be
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: ourselves now, So let's take these these arguments in reverse order.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk about the rebuttals kind of going
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: backwards from what we just described, right, So going to
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: the this is the way we've always done an argument.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I was also used way back before the germ theory
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: of disease was kind of you know, came about. Yeah,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: and before I was used to prevent policies that would
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: require doctors to wash their hands between surgeries and resulted
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: in massive numbers of preventable, unnecessary death. So this argument
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: is so bad. It's the anti science argument, right, it's
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: the anti data argument. We've always done it like this,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Why will we ever change it while we have data
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: to say that doesn't work? Right, and so we're going
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: to do something better and different. So the argument is
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: so bad it should almost be used as the argument
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: for doing something, because if someone says this, they are
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: wrong in principle, even if the rest of their arguments
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: are sound. If your argument is always this is how
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: we've always done it, then you are already missing the
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: point of anything, of doing anything.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're on the wrong side of that argument. Yeah, immediately, Yeah,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: stop it. Just don't include that and you'll be in
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: a better position position, Okay. Right, So that's just a
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: bad argument logically, conceptually, theoretically, practically, it sucks. All right.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: The argument that we're now addressing is the one that
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: other democracies use an electoral system. There are other countries
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: that do use sort of electoral systems. However, no other country, none,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: not one uses the electoral system the way that the
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: United States uses the electoral system. Most of the other
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: countries that do have electoral college systems, they actually use
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: them to elect senators or some other kind of legislators.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Members of parliament. Could be one if we look at Maanmar, Burundi, Estonia, India, Madagascar, Pakistan, Nepal,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Trinidad and Tobago, Vanawtu, and Vatican City. These are all
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: places that do use a sort of electoral system in
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: which electors choose the head of state. But those electors
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: are not always even representing the actual votes of real people.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes they were just elected to their position, whatever position
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: that might be, without any idea or concept that then
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: they would be choosing a specific candidate on the behalf
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: of the people who elected them. They just get to pick, choose,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: and appoint to that person to that position. So right
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: that a very different system. Nobody uses an electoral college
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: the way that we do to choose their head of state.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So just because other democracies or versions of government that
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: kind of look like democracies use an electoral system. None
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: of them do it the way the United States does it,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: and certainly no no like developed countries with democracies do
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: it the way that we do it.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: We're number one. We'd number one. Further, in places where
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: the head of state is chosen by an electoral system,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: the head of state is largely a symbolic position with
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: very little power. The actual power rests with the prime minister,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: who is never directly elected by the voters, or at
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: least we couldn't find any examples of this. But no democracy,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: no country at all, uses an electoral system to choose
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: the head of state in the same way that the
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: US does it. More than half of the countries that
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: elect the president do not use an electoral college at all.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: In thirty three of forty one country is that directly
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: elect the head of state without a prime minister, the
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: head of state is elected by the popular vote in
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: twenty two of those thirty three. The winner must have
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: an absolute majority of the popular.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Vote, and so for that reason they'll often actually go
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: several rounds of voting that'll sort of weed out candidates,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: and so it's like they'll have around the whole bunch
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: of candidates. Most of them don't get enough to stay in.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: They'll do another round and they might have two, three,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: sometimes more. But that's essentially the different systems. But they
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: always are based entirely on the popular vote, entirely right,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Just whoever got the most votes wins, you know, like
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: a voting system. That's all.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: That's all we're asking.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, the next one here is this argument that, like,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: we've got bigger problems to solve. First of all, that
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: is an argument that is used in bad faith in
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: many places that I wish I had some examples right
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: off the top of my head, but a lot of
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: times people it's the sort of what aboutism argument. It's
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: the like you're bringing up a valid arm and rather
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: than addressing that, I say, what about this? I'm like,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: we can walk and chew gum, right, we can acknowledge
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: this thing and have bigger problems. We can find joy
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: in the world and also understand that there are serious
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: problems in the world that need to be addressed and fixed.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: It's like, I'm not going to withhold my ability to
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: laugh for the rest of my life until all problems
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: are fixed. Right, that's a nonsense way to go. I
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: can do both of those things anyway. The idea that
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: this the electoral college is too small of a problem
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: to worry about means that the policies and actions of
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the president aren't very important. Like that's essentially what that
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: would imply. President doesn't really matter, So why would we
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: worry about trying to fix the system. If we had
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: a prime minister in the United States, that would be true.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: But given that we have the most extreme candidates imaginable anymore,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: the idea that this isn't depressing issue seems patently false,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: and as we talked about in the last episodes, most
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: people tend to agree that that is not accurate.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right, exactly now. The argument that a candidate
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: would win only by winning a few states without winning
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: votes in the other states is kind of true, but
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: also very misleading. Essentially, what they were saying before was that, Okay,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: larger cities would win the election, so like, we need
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: to balance it out by having a higher percentage of
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: a voice essentially for smaller places, right, smaller states specifically, Yeah,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: but without the electoral college, the president wouldn't win states,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: they would win votes. Yeah, period. They would win raw votes,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: the raw votes they are so concerned about. Yeah, they
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: would win those raw votes. This means that they could
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: win the majority of the votes even if those votes
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: happen to be concentrated in certain geographical regions. We'll expand
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: on this and when we address other arguments, but all
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: this is saying is if somebody has more points, they win.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it is.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the NBA Finals works because the team that wins
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: has the most points at the end of the games
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: that they needed to win. They win games they have
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: the most wins. They have the most points in those games.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: It's points.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: That's that's how That's how I'm given to understand it. Yes,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the most points wins, Yeah, in most in most games, yes,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: but yeah they The really key element of this argument
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: is understanding that like states basically don't exist if we
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: move to a popular vote. I mean, they exist, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: as far as having like a government that's unique to
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: that geographical region. Sure, But as you said, the correct
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: way of thinking about this is that candidates would no
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: longer win states. There's no boundary. They would just be
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: whoever got the most votes. So there aren't states with
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: respect to how right, And they're sort of saying, like,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: but they'd be all concentrated in where the most people are.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, most people are there, like right.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Which which means when they campaign, they would campaign to
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: people they wouldn't campaign to states.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Like Let's I give the example in the
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: first episode about like having an office party, we were
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: choosing the type of ice cream. Let's imagine that we
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: were like having Let's imagine we're all in high school
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: or something and we're having a school assembly and we're
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: all going to vote.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: On graduation song, graduation graduation song, and then everybody votes
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: for vote votes for Vitamin C's graduation song when it
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: should have been Freebird.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Well, hold on, we need to wear in the context
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: experience for me. So first we get everybody in the gym,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: and then we basically they all most of the people
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: happen to go over where like the AC unit is
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: because it's really hot and they're trying to cool down
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: a little bit, so they're over kind of by the
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: AC unit. But there's definitely a few people sort of
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: around the other places of the gym, and we say stop,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: you can't move anymore. Now, what we're gonna do is
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: have everyone vote, but the people who are not under
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: the AC unit their votes count more because we don't
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: want the people who are under the AC unit to
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: have that much voting power because they're over there and
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: not over on the other side of the gym. Like,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: that's basically the argument that we're making here is you
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: happen to be over there, therefore your vote shouldn't count
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: as much because we don't want that side of the
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: gym to have so much voting power. Right, I don't
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: think that side of the gym has anything to do
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: with it anyway. Sorry, getting ahead of ourselves. We need
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: to move on. Yes, Okay, as we mentioned the two
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: party system is cool down there, good callback or reference.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I guess we never made that jokes. We couldn't go
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: back to it. But we talked about the two party system,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: the argument being that like it helps preserve the two
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: party system. Well, the polls show most people don't like
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: having a two party system. Helping to preserve the two
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: party system alone is an argument to get rid of
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: the electoral college. Even if none of the arguments were there,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: the system fosters a tendency toward the most extreme candidates,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: and wide contentious political divides across the country. Many people
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: just want more and different choices, and they have said
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: this over and over again in polls. Even those of
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: us who feel pretty tightly aligned with our own parties
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: don't necessarily see the option of other parties as being
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: a terrible thing if those people had the real opportunity
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: to represent be represented in the government, because those are
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: people who are here who do want to avoid their
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: voice to be heard, so unlikely they would necessarily make
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: it to the presidency. But we also only have two
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: actual parties really being represented in Congress.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Now, the argument that presidential candidates wouldn't campaign to smaller states,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: it's demonstrably false. So the overwhelming majority of candidates time
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: is spent in battleground states. That is, states with a
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: high electoral count that have a relatively even split of
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: those Democratic and Republican voters. Right, So, like you'll hear
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: the term swing states a lot, because they can go
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: one way or another because of that kind of equal split,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: So they spend they actually spend more time in those
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: places campaigning to help swing the vote in their favor.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: The electoral college means that candidates only need to focus
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: on winning those largely populated states. They only need to
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: go to the places with the most points. They don't
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: need to go to Alaska or Maine or Vermont because
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: there's not as many points to win there. But they
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: need to go to places like Ohio and California and
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: Florida and like different places that have a high concentration
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: of these votes. So what ends up happening is the
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: candidates need to focus on these largely populated states where
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: the votes are not guaranteed. They will do little campaigning
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: in other states. But states don't matter to a candidate
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: when they must secure the popular votes. So if they
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: had to secure the popular vote and votes mattered as
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: a one to one ratio, one person to one vote,
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: and when every person gets the vote, then the candidate
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: is incentivized to spend time in the most populated areas,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: but also get votes wherever they can get them, which
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: means smaller areas, because every vote matters, exactly.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: That is exactly I think one another one of the
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: most key points here, and yeah, actually to contradict one
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: thing you said is political candidates rarely campaign in California, right,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: which has like the highest number of electoral votes and
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: the reason is they don't really need to. It's like
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Republican candidates, they're unlikely to get enough votes there to
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: get all of the electoral votes. Democrat candidates have it
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: locked down, so they really spend it in the sort
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: of six or maybe eight states where it's not guaranteed,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: so they're going to be in They historically have been
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: in Florida, as you said, Ohio, Pennsylvania, recently Michigan. So
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: there's like a handful of battleground states where they're going
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: to spend a ton of money and a ton of time.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: But as you were pointing out, the point is when
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: they aren't trying to get electors, they're trying to get
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: every vote they can, which means that they need to
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: spread their campaigning out more right wherever they can get
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: a vote, that vote will count for them, because if
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: they know that they can't squeak over the margin fifty percent,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: there's really little incentive for them to campaign there at all. Versus,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: if they are going to get any votes there, they
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: want to get as many as they possibly can, so
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: they're going to campaign pretty much everywhere cause it's like
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: some states that might have like forty five percent and
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: they don't win the plurality of that state, but they
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: still got forty five percent of the votes in that
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: state and they need those if they're going to secure victory,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: right right, So that's that's why it matters.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Well, And to that point, like think about it like this, like,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: so you're going to state that is maybe guaranteed, Like
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: let's go back to California. Right, So you're a conservative
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: candidate and you don't even bother campaigning in California because
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: why would you? Why would you? Cause you're not going
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: to win that electoral vote. But the problem is is
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: that there are people who are your constituents there. There
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: are people who are going to vote for you. There
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: are people who want to hear from you. There are
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: people there that want to hear what policies you have
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: that are going to impact them, and you don't even
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: bother giving them the time of day. So, like the
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Electoral College doesn't just deincentivize campaigning in to these states,
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: it also makes it so that your voice for your
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: candidate in a state where maybe you're not gonna win
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: the electoral vote, like your voice doesn't really matter that
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: much to the candidate that is currently running because your
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: state is not going to go to them, right, So
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: they're not gonna bother for you. They're not campaigning for you.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: They're campaigning for the people who are on the fence
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: in Florida or Ohio or Pennsylvania. And that is kind
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: of sad.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's specifically disenfranchises voters of the non populist party
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: in states that are unlikely to ever vote for the
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: other candidate. So like those just as you said, like
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: how disenfranchising is it to be a Republican in California
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: where you know, like, yeah, I'll go vote, but like
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: what good that'll do?
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Right, They're not doing anything for me anyway.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Or like Democrats who live in like let's say Idaho,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: all two of them, Like why should I go vote? Like, oh,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Idaho is never gonna vote for the Democratic candidate, Like
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: that's not that will never be my choice, right, And
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: so like, I think it's specifically disenfranchises voters because their
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: voices don't matter in states where they're not battleground states.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: And disenfranchises voters that want to vote. Like that's the thing,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Like there are people that already don't want to vote.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: There are people who are involved in politics that don't
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: want to be involved in politics because they never get
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: a chance to be heard because their candidates never bother
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: to take time to visit them exactly.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: All right, now, there is more to say on this,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: and we need to cool off, and what better way
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: to do that than forcing everyone to listen to ads.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: We've been talking about this whole argument about battleground states
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: and the idea of them campaigning, and again, the logic
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: of this argument doesn't actually make sense really, So let's
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: just say even if it was true that small states
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have candidates campaign there, which it isn't, that assume
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: a couple of things about those states. One, it assumes
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: that they want candidates campaigning there. Probably some people do.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: But there's definitely, I think, campaign fatigue in the United
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: States because we have no real restrictions on when you
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: can start campaigning and except for essentially how much money
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: they can raise, and so they we spend like two
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: years not in campaign mode and the rest of the
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: time is like campaign mode, maybe two years, maybe it's
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: a year and a half, maybe it's only a year.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: It's like we're always being campaigned to about candidates and
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: it sucks. So yeah, I don't know that that assumption
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: is necessarily true, although it probably is for some people.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: The other assumption is it assumes that the people in
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: those states would rather their votes not count to then
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: have incentive for the candidate to campaign there, assuming that
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: was a legitimate argument in the first place. Let's take
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Maine for example. Maine generally recently has cast its electors
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: toward the Democratic candidate. The Democratic candidate has won the
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: popular vote in eight of the nine last elections at
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: the time of this recording. Right, the argument here suggests
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: that they would rather their votes not matter because the
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: electoral College will choose a candidate other than the one
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: they elected, so that they could have the chance that
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the candidate will campaign in their state, which they're already
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: not doing. Like right, the logic of this is so
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: massively flawed from start to end that it's it is
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: a complete nonsense thing to say and be like, we
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: should keep elect the electoral college because phibly good, but
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: it's gonna be them Like those aren't words.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: No, I mean that's there are some people that heard
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: that and understood it.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, you said nothing. But it's almost worse
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: than that, because it's just backwards. All of it's wrong.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: There's literally not one part of that argument that holds water.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: So let's move on from that part.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, So the last idea that votes in
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: geographical minorities wouldn't matter is egregiously incorrectly, and so it's
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: so incorrect that as to be the opposite of true.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Like it is. It could not be further from the truth.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: But it also is saying the quiet part out loud.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: If we eliminate the electoral college, then the candidate with
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: the majority of votes wins, period. Right. This means that
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: every person's vote counts as one vote, and we've kind
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: of said this multiple times. One person equals one vote,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: and that's a nice idea, right. The electoral college preserves
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: a system in which some people's votes count more than others,
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: and that's exactly what happens. So instead of one to
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: one correspondence, what you've got is in some states of
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: vote counts for less and in other states of vote
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: counts for more, depending on how it's weighted. The electoral
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: college is simply a weighted system.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It puts its thumb on the scale of elections
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: to push it towards certain candidates right, and again this
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: is just not this is not what it's specifically not
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: what people want. It is specifically not what people are choosing.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It is asking people what they want and then doing
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the opposite, like why did you even ask? What was
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: the point? So to segue to this, this is a
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: related point. So they say this, like, the most highly
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: populated cities and states would decide the election. No, they
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: thinking wouldn't. First of all, cities don't vote, States don't vote.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Land does not have an election card. They Land does
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: not get to vote in things. One person, one vote,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: As we've said, that should be the rule. Cities don't
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: vote for candidates, States don't vote for candidates. People vote
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: for candidates. The idea that large cities would select the
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: president implies that those people have more votes than people
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: in smaller areas. Do they have more votes than people
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: in smaller areas? No, they do not know. They have
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: vo one vote, one person, one vote. That is what
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: we're suggesting here. One person living in Chicago gets one vote,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: One person living in Eli, Nevada gets one vote. They
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: each get a vote.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: The argument that they are making is that people in
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: rural areas should get more votes, because that way they
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: can have more power and elections than people who live
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: in highly populated areas. They're arguing that if you happen
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: to live just by for whatever reason, circumstances brought you
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: to an area with a lot of people, your vote
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: shouldn't count as much. It should count less. If you
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: happen to live, for whatever circumstance that brought you to it,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: to a place that has fewer people, your vote should
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: count for more. And that's just wrong, Like, that's wrong.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: We're asking people to choose their elected leaders and then
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: ignoring Thatch. Right, again, it just so happens to be
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: the case that, like, where you end up is where
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: you end up. If I were to just move you
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: somewhere else, would your opinion suddenly change about that candidate? Unlikely? Right,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: There's really no reason to think that it would so,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: And I think we'll make that point, but I just
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: want to make sure it really clear. This whole idea
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: that like, well, we give too much power to the cities.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: I'm like, no, we would count all the people who
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: vote who happen to be located there.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Let's take California, for example, a very solidly democratic state.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: It has voted for Democrats, and last several elections there
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: are millions of Republican voters there whose votes are not
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: being counted, right because the electoral system sends all of
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: their delegates to support the Democratic candidate. And we were
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: talking about this earlier, Like, the argument that states would
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: choose electors assumes that somehow states retain an electoral system
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: after we've gotten rid of it. We're saying that system
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: is gone. Like, this argument just doesn't make any sense
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: because again, states would no longer be choosing presidents, just
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: votes would.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: Be right, right, So let's take that. Let's do a
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: thought experiment for a second. Let's let's pretend that we
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: reallocated people so that every single city in this country
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: had the same exact number of people. Those people are
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: not going to change their vote because they are now
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: in a different area. Now the size of the city
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter, and the candidate with the most votes always
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: wins every election. Would we be okay with that? Would
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: you all be okay with that? There's a lot of
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: people that would not be okay with that, just because
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: it's not what we've always done. But because this is
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: this isn't about fair, equal representation. It is about maintaining
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: an unfair, unequal representation based on land, not people.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Right. So they literally said in their argument that the
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: person who wins the most votes shouldn't necessarily win the election.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: That's what they said. Yep, the candidate who wins the
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: most votes should not win the election. What the fuck?
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: That's weird.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Regardless of whatever follows in their argument, this is an
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: asinine statement. If their candidate was the one who kept
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: winning the vast majority of votes but losing because a
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: system more heavily weighted the votes of their opponent, I
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: strongly doubt that they'd keep making an argument to keep
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: the system. The only argument is they don't like how
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: the outcomes would be shaped because they would lose. They
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: would lose the votes, right, And I think what would
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: happen ultimately if we got rid of this system is
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: people would have to be less extreme. You would have
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: to pick better candidates because your candidate won't win. If
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: you keep picking terrible candidates, pick or candidates, then they'll
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: win all the votes. So that's essentially what would be
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: incentivized by eliminating the electoral college system is having better
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: candidates who are not so extreme. What a crime.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: I know, isn't it wild to think that that's like
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: something that is well within our grasp but never happens
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: because people are two up their own butts about their
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: political party.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, and just the arguments here they just don't
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: they don't make sense, they don't stand on their own
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: their counterproductive across the board. The only argument, like what
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: they're the only thing they're actually saying really here is
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: we know we're going to lose this election because we
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: have terrible candidates and terrible policies, So we're going to
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: change the system or I mean, the system favors us already,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: but we are going to have a system whereby we
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: can still win. Sometimes I'm like, that's not the system
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: anybody here wants. We are specifically choosing and it's pushing
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: things to the extremes. So it is just a colossal,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: fantastic failure. I'll share more of my opinion about this
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: if not that I haven't done so generously so far,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: but there is actually more to say after we set
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: through some more advertisements.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: So there are some other arguments to consider when we're
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: talking about this as if there's not hundreds and hundreds
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: of arguments. I mean, the real argument should just be
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: one person, one vote. That's what it should be.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: There are to unpack this more. There's a thing called
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: faithless electors, and these are people who don't vote according
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: to the majority in their states. So you might have
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: a situation where the majority of a state votes one
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: way and the elector votes the opposite different way, And
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: sometimes it's legal and sometimes it's not, depending on how
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: it's codified in state law.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: This is actually sort of an interesting thing to unpack.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: This is probably a good place for this, Yeah, is
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: some have raised the argument so like some states, the
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court in some states has upheld that if an
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: elector did not vote for the candidate that won the
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: majority of that state's votes, in some states, they are
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: like prosecuted. They are prevented from holding that position any longer,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: and they are not allowed to participate in related activities.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: And the Supreme Court upheld that saying, you basically did
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: not do your job. Your job here was to vote
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: in accordance with the popular vote of your state. You
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: did not do that. You no longer get to hold
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: this position. Right. Other states have gone the opposite direction,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: where they had faithless electors who chose someone other than
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: who that candidate selected and cast their electoral vote toward
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: a different candidate who did not win the popularity of
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: that state, And the Supreme Court of that state said, instead,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: you have the right to do whatever you want. This
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: is not spelled out in the constitution whether you have
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: to vote with accordance to the state's popular vote. It
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: was kind of implied, but it wasn't actually spelled out.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: So you get to sort of vote your conscience, if
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: you will, and choose whatever candidate you think is in
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: line with your values, which again then distills the millions
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: of people's votes down into like ten people, and one
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: of those people then counts for ten percent of that
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: state's power. That is a ludicrous, ridiculous amount of power
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: for that person to have, right, right, It's absurd. Okay,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: There's another thing that we talked about in the first
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: episode that the very first instance in which the person
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: who won the popular vote did not become president was
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: actually because they had so many candidates who won such
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: a large proportion of the vote. They had four and
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: in that situation, the vote goes to Congress to decide
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: who wins. But they only decide on the top three.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: So the fourth place person, through all of their political
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: power behind the second place person, got that person elected.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: What happened was they basically went to that second candidate
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: and said, hey, you make me your secretary of state,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: and I will throw all of my political might behind
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: you become the president. So what happens is setting the
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: vote to Congress can incentivize these sort of insider deals
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: and corruption because you have people sort of again they're
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: undercutting the vote of the people, and they're doing under
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: the table back alley deals to just maintain power, like
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: making promises to each other, some quid pro quos, as
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: we've heard said, and like that just is a recipe
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: for corruption that we definitely are trying to avoid in
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: general and a functioning government.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: Right, there's also the argument that because most of the countries,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: like GDP is concentrated in most densely populated areas, and
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: the more densely populated areas, you know, we have this
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: issue that ultimately they have less representation even though there
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: is more money and economy and all the stuff happening
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: inside of these larger populations. Right, there's more stuff happening
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: in these larger epicenters of the cities, and they arguably
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: get less representation because of the way the electoral college
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: is set up.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like the bulk of our economy is
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: handled by these these places where the most people happened
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: to be, and then we're giving them the least amount
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: of voting power. Like, if we were going to inequitably
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: distribute voting power, wouldn't we be distributing it toward the
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: places that make our economy thrive the most?
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: And so I mean I would say, no, let's not
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: unequally distribute power at all, but that would be going
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: literally the opposite way it's currently going. And so they're
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: sort of making the argument that it is so it's
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: so wrong, it's backwards if it was going to be
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: any any way, if the scales are going to be
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: tipped any one way.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think when you think about it, and
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: this is something that like and we'll talk about this
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: than a second too, but I think when you hear
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: people say, well, why would I vote? Your votes don't matter,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: like there is a system in place that has effectively
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: made people feel like that. Like this system, the way
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: that it is designed and the way the electoral college
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: works is effectively made people feel like their votes don't matter,
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: because ultimately, if I vote one way in a state
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: that gives all the electoral votes another way, then sure
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: my vote didn't really matter in that elector, at least
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: for the at least for the president. Right, And we
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: could talk all day about local elections and how important
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: they are too, But like, arguably it makes sense that
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: people have a certain feeling about this.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think I've never really liked the argument
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: very much. And I'll just say a quick piece on that,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: which is, like, you are correct that when you have
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: lost your voice did not really count for anything because
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: none of your voting power went to supporting the candidate
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: you wanted to support. And I understand that sentiment. I've
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: also heard like, well, my vote's not going to be
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: the one that tips the scales. I'm like, it should
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: never be that way. That's a dictatorship or like a
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: monarchy that we're talking about. One person should not have
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: that kind of power. The point is you participate in
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: having your voice heard and be represented. And also, going
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: back to just the main argument of like your voice
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: didn't matter, is like that person still did win because
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: they had enough votes that the electoral votes of that
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: state went to the candidate. So they did have to
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: have all those people voting for them. It wasn't any
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: one person in there that did it. It was all
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: the people together. You know, when you lose, that's a bummer,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: and it definitely is not fair that your voice doesn't
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: count toward supporting the candidate you chose. But like, if
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: enough people had supported the candidate, your voice would have
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: been a part of that. And so the defeatist attitude
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: of like, well it's not going to matter. I'm like,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: I do understand in a way, but also consider like
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: that's essentially how candidates lose also.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Right exactly.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: I did have a question we were kind of wondering,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: like how are electors even selected? They get these like
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: faithless electors and that sort of thing. Apparently there's only
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: a couple rules that were sort of spelled out, and
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: then there was different ways that it had been handled. Essentially,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: the only thing that specified in the constitution states that
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: you just can't be a member of Congress or hold
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: federal office. That's pretty much anyone else, yeah, could potentially
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: be an elector. But they said basically states you figure
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: out how you want to choose your electors. Now, until
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: about the mid eighteen hundreds or so, the legislators would
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: just appoint electors. They just say you're going to be
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: an elector, and that was an appointed position. Most commonly anymore,
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: the state party convention choose as electors and they have
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: like nominated a slate of electors that they'll vote on
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: at the convention, and then those electors become the electors
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: for the state. In some states, electors are chosen by
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: a vote of the state's party central committee, but it
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: seems like most states have this these each political party
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: state convention will select their electors, and it seems like
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of time these are people who serve in
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: other government roles in the state. So again they can't
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: have federal office, they can't be in Congress. But it
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: seems like it's probably a lot of people who have
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: other government roles who end up being the electors for
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: that state.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: Right, So, where do we go from here? I mean,
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: this is this it's a mess.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: So what do we do? Yeah, so a lot of
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: people are dissatisfied with the electoral system. As we mentioned
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: at the in the first episode, we talked about that.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: When polled, most people say that they think we should
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: get rid of the system again. Right now, our voices
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: are not super well represented in government, so it seems
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: unlikely that that change would happen. But most people are
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: in favor of this, So there is this path forward.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Someone put forth this idea. I saw his name, but
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: I didn't write it into and I forgot what it was.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: But he was like a big political person. They put
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: together this idea to essentially undercut the electoral college. It's
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, sometimes abbreviated as
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: NPV is National Popular Vote or NPVIC for the Interstate
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Compact part. And this is an agreement between states to
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: send their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: not necessarily the candidate that their state selected, essentially meaning
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: that like, let's just say I'm in Nevada, let's just
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: say that Nevada happens to vote for Realistically, let's say
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Nevada happens to vote for Donald Trump with the majority
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: of people here, but the popular vote went to Kamala Harris.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: The state would then send all of their electoral votes
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: to Kamala Harris because she won the popular vote, and
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: not to Donald Trump because he did not win the
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: popular vote even though the majority of the state did,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: and so essentially that would undercut entirely the idea of
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: the electoral college because the candidate who won the popular
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: vote would also just get all of the electoral votes
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: in this agreement. So far, seventeen states representing two hundred
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: and nine electoral votes, which is thirty nine percent of
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: the electoral college, have signed on to this agreement. Another
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: five states are pending approval, representing fifty more electoral votes,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: for a total of two hundred and fifty nine. To
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: win an election, a candidate must have two hundred and
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: seventy electoral votes, so they are only eleven away. However,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: the system will only go into effect if they can
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: reach the majority needed that two hundred and seventy votes
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: to secure an election, so they are just eleven electoral
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: votes shy, assuming that the pending's complete their agreement process
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: of going to a system wherein two hundred and seventy
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: at least two hundred and seventy electoral votes would be
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: guaranteed to go to the candidate who won the popular vote,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: it would literally get rid of the electoral system. I mean,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: it would also disenfranchise all the voters in that state
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: who voted for the candidate who didn't get elected, and
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: hence it's still not better than a popular vote, but
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: it would completely undercut the original intention of the electoral college,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: which was to give more power to fewer people.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: It would be the thing that would demonstrate that the
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: electoral college can be broken. And that's the thing I
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: think that needs to be seen, is like it's that
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: whole idea of like in three hundred, where it's like
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: he didn't have to win, he just had to make
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: God bleed right, and so like you know, and that's
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: really what has to happen. It's like, I've relied so
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: heavily on this system for so long that if you
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: showed that it can be broken by simply making an
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: agreement or compact, like if you can do that, then
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: ultimately the system had not enough power to sustain anyway.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: So it was time to undo the system.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Well, obviously this was proposed because they think the system
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: is broken as it is, like it's clearly not representing
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: the will of the voters. But let's I know, we
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: have people who listen to us who are not Democrats.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: So let's spin this as a hypothetical in your favor.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Let's say you're planning on supporting Donald Trump in the
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: upcoming election. Let's say that states including California and New
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: York were on board with this plan to send their
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: electors toward the popular candidate. Let's say that Donald Trump
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college. In
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: this new system, even California, having voted completely for the
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: Democratic candidate, would send all of their electoral votes for
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump because he won the popular vote, assuming they
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: were part of this group of states who had agreed
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: to this right. So in that case, it would guarantee
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: that having won the popular vote secured him the candidacy.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: You can see why you'd look at that because, like,
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: imagine how frustrated you would be if he won the
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: popular vote and then lost the electoral college. That's how
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: the other half has felt the last several elections, right
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: where that has actually been the case. So again, it's
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: really about securing fairness and the elections by ensuring that
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: the candidate who is chosen by the people becomes the leader.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: Right Well, and I think also to you know, I
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: could see people going like, I don't know about that.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, you know, when
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: you think about the twenty sixteen election and the way
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: the votes went in California, when you really think about it,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: it's the same kind of thing, Like you didn't win, yeah, right,
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: Like it's a blue state that went into red territory.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: Like it like it went into a red presidency, a
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: blue state that went into a red presidency essentially, right,
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: And that's so you didn't win with the way the
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: system works as it is, so why not change it
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: up anyway to see what happens, Like, I don't know
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: why we wouldn't want to try to shake it up
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: a little bit, you know, spice it up.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: The whole point here is that everyone's vote should count.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: Everyone's vote should count. Yeah, everyone's vote should count exactly
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: the same as everyone else's vote. Because just as you said, like,
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: when you're in a state that heavily favors one party
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: over the other consistently and you're not in that majority,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: then like, how disenfranchising for you to literally never have
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: your vote counted towards the candidate that you support. If
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: you throw your vote behind a candidate who doesn't win. Like,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: if we move to a popular vote, let's say at
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: least your vote was counted for that person's support, right right,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: at the minimum, at the minimum, if you throw your
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: vote behind the candidate who did win, your vote was
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: part of what helped that happen. And right now, if
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: you throw your vote behind the candidate who wins the
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: popular vote but loses the election, that is so enormously
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: frustrating and so counterproductive and so backward. It is just wrong.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Every part of it is wrong. It is like homeowners' associations.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: We should throw it in the ditch, set it on fire,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: and write in history books what a terrible, terrible mistake
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: it was. Yeah, that we ever had this in the
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: first place. Yes, I was so. I was going to
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: share my opinion. When I first started doing like the
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: research to put together the notes for this discussion, I
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: was like already in favor of the idea of removing
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: or maybe just restructuring the electoral college. Before I sort
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: of got into this, I remember thinking like, this feels
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: like this is not a very good system. But I
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: also heard arguments for people saying this, like we do
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: need to preserve this system. It has an important function.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: And so I went into this with an open mind, thinking,
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: I want to know what those arguments for. Maybe I'm wrong,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: maybe my opinion about this has been all askew. But
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: then I learned about this system, and I went from
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: being moderately in favor of eliminating it to being a
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: vehement advocate for the immediate abolition of the electoral college. Immediate.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Let's not wait, do it tomorrow, do it yesterday. It
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: is garbage, garbage system that is terrible for our country.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: It is terrible for democracy. It sets a terrible precedent,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: and it sucks.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: It doesn't work.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: It throw it away, it does not work.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a good take home point.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: You could call it that.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna say I you know what's
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: funny is I'm I'm in the same boat. Like, you know,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: I never really understood why it was a thing, and
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: I never never made sense to me logic. And then
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: going into this, you're like, oh, yeah, no, this is
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: like just bad. Yeah for everybody involved.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it might find it a little confusing
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: and a little weird. And then you learned about it,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: You're like, Wow, this is amazingly stupid. This is not
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: a good idea.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: It's intentionally confusing.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this isn't This was like a deliberately bad,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: belligerently bad idea.
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, I think that's what we have to say about
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: the electoral college. We nailed it. Why do people do it?
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Because they were very cynical and had bad ideas and
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: we're not thinking clearly, and then they rode that into
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: a policy that could almost couldn't be changed, even though
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: people have tried over seven hundred times to change it.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: And so we've had a really tough go of it.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: We have had a system that is I mean, it
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: had mostly not mattered that it was a bad system
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: for a long time, and now we're at the point
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: where it is so cracked and frayed it is basically
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: just a crumbly turd that is trying to destroy our country.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: So yeah, just flush that turd. Let's start over with
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: a clean toilet.
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the take on point.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: All right, Well we can wrap it up. There is
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: there anything you'd like to add, because I didn't really
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: give you a chance to share much about your thoughts
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: on this before we transition to some recommendations.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: No, I think we mailed it. I think that that's
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: exactly where I would have landed on that.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, lovely. Well, if you are not familiar with our
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: format here, we like to recommend some fun things that
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: are just unrelated to our topic. They're just things we're recommending.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: But before I do that, I must review the credits.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us and for listening.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: If you would like to support our show, as I
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: mentioned at the beginning of this, you can join us
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: on Patreon. There you can add free episodes, early episodes,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: bonus content, all that sort of good thing, and you
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: get to help support what we do, which we very
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: much appreciate. You can also support us non financially by
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: leaving us a rating and a review, subscribing, telling a friend, liking, sharing,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: do all that sort of thing. And you can also
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: pick up some merch if you want to just have
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: some cool podcast merch around, which is always very good
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: and all that's very lovely. Also, if you join us
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: on Patreon, something else important happens, which is that I
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: am going to read your name to thank you for
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: throwing your support behind us, and that includes Mike m
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Megan Mike t, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: and Michelle. Thank you all. You are just so wonderful
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: and I just really really appreciate who you have been
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: for us for so long.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Absolutely y'all are just absolutely truly the best.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: Of course, thank you to my team of people, without
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: whom I would have a very difficult time making a
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: podcast writing in fact, chucking with from Shane and myself.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And the audio
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: that sounds like two people having a cohesive conversation brought
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: to you courtesy of Justin, who I unfortunately made work
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: much harder on this episode than he should have to,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: but I do appreciate his efforts. So thank you Justin
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: for being so patient with me.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: You're the best.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: All right now, I think that's all I have. Is
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: there anything that I am forgetting before we transition to
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: our recommendations?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Not today?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: No, Okay, let's recommend some things.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: Yay recommendations.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: As I have been on my high ranty horse lately,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: I'll let you start with the recommendations.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to recommend a book I recently finished
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: a book called Naked by David Sadarisk. So have you
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: ever read David Sadaris.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like you.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: Would really have have been naked. Though that's true many
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: of us have. Can't say all of us, you know,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: there's never a certainty, okay. So this David Sadaris is
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: a short story kind of like I want to say,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: autobiographical writer. A lot of his books are a collection
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: of short stories about his family, about kind of his experiences,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: and some of them are just very outlandish. He's got
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: a very strange sense of humor. So like in Calypso,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: which is like one of his later books, he wrote
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: the story about how he had gotten a fatty tumor removed,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: but he didn't want to go to an American hospital,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: so he crossed the border and got it cut out
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: in like the garage garage and somebody in Mexico, and
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: then had the tumor mailed to himself put it in
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: the freezer so he could feed it to a snapping
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: turtle in North Carolina.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: Sure as one does, yeah, as one does.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: So Naked is one of his earlier story like collections
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: of short stories, and it's really kind of like talked
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: about his early life and how he would hitchhike in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: some of the trouble he got into, and just some
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: of the characters he meets along the way really fascinating
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: to kind of you, and you kind of go, this
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: isn't real. There's no way thiss happened. And then for
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: the most part, yeah, I mean, there might be some
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: like language embellishments here and there, but for the most part,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: his experiences are all real, and you just kind of go,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: this is this is It sounds like it's all made
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: up and so on such a level that like it's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: so it's stranger than fiction. Really, He's written a bunch
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: of things. His sister is Amy Sadarius, who was the
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: main character on Strangers with Candy. Yeah, and like she's
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: a she's a comedian's she's a popular comedian.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: I thought that name sounded familiar.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So David Sadaris is her her sibling. And he
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: just has written so much stuff, and Naked is probably
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: one of his best. So I definitely recommend it as
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: a as a fun read. All right, I say fun.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: There are some harrowing stories in it, but it is
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: an interesting read.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: I'll say, okay, interesting, Yeah, all right, live fast, write
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: a book. This is Naked by David Sadaris. All right, Yeah,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: I've been on a huge movie watching streak lately. I
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: have I really stepped up my movie watching game, which
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: makes me just feel all the happy joys. Sure one
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: I had the pleasure of watching that came out I
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: believe a year ago or so is a new standalone
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: installment of the genre of monster movies known as Godzilla.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: And this is Godzia minus one man. Man, what a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: fantastic movie it is just it is maybe I mean,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: I have not seen all of the Godzilla movies, but
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: it is definitely the best one I have ever seen.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: It is really really spectacularly done. And so the director,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: as I understand it, the director, like originally worked as
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: a visual effects artist, so he really knew how to
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: direct and set up a movie where you could capitalize
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: on visual effects the best. And this movie only costs them,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: if I remember correctly, like fifteen million dollars to make. Yeah,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: and while that sounds like an absurd amount of money
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: to you or I, who like will never see fifteen
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: million dollars collectively in our entire lifetime. That's like a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: drop in the bucket relative to how other Godzilla movie,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: how much other Godzilla movies costs, or any movies for
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: that matter, that are in the hundreds of millions of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: dollars range or even more than that.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: For perspective, Avengers Endgame costs three hundred and fifty six
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: million dollars to me, right.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: That is, that is more than t ten times more
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: what Godzilla cost to me. Yeah, I saw this on Netflix.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it won't be up there forever, but that's
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: at least where it was streaming at the time that
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: we're recording this. So if you're interested in monster movies,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: this one. As I said, it's probably the best Godzilla
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: movie I've ever seen, and I have seen quite a few,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: although not many of the super super old ones, which
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: I'm sure are also great in their own way. All Right,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: I think that that is all that I have Godzilla
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: minus Won the movie, and Naked, the book by David Sedaris.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: And if you would like to tell us about your
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: thoughts about the Electoral College or Godzilla movies or books
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: called Naked, you should certainly reach out to us. You
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: can email us directly at info ATWWDWWD podcast dot com.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: You can reach us on the social media platforms, and
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: if you like to leave us some constructive criticism, you
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: can also reach out to us directly and we will
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: happily hear that. If you have some nonsense things to say,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: then you can certainly say them and we'll just ignore you.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: But we do appreciate heaping piles of praise, and we
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: also have preciate constructive criticism because we really value learning
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: on the show. That's pretty much why we do it
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: so we can learn stuff. That's why we do what
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: we do.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: That's exactly why we do what we do.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: So anyway, I think that is all that I have
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: to say. Thank you for listening. Is there anything that
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: you would like to add or anything that I forgot
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: before we wrap up here?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: Nothing on my end?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, thank you. This is Abraham and it's Shane. We're out.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: See ya. You've been listening to Why we Do what
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: we do.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: day