Speaker 1: As media. All right, teacher prop here, listen, we're a
Speaker 1: couple months away from one of the most terrifying novembers.
Speaker 1: You we just there's just no way to know what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Either we gonna make history with the first
Speaker 1: female president, the first biracial, Indian and black. Either that
Speaker 1: or we're gonna get Trumpetmania. And if we get the
Speaker 1: first sister, we probably gonna get another January sixth and
Speaker 1: then but if we get the Trumpster we're gonna get,
Speaker 1: we might still get like celebratory riots. We ain't even
Speaker 1: got to the October surprise yet, Like it is wild
Speaker 1: in these streets. But also this means we're all gonna
Speaker 1: participate in one of the most bizarre convoluted up the
Speaker 1: street round the Corona Rigamaro Way to vote for a leader,
Speaker 1: and that is the electoral College. Like why is it
Speaker 1: even politics, y'all? All right, First, it's like a d
Speaker 1: bull look is like this bullook is like this all right, y'all,
Speaker 1: it's like this so uh, Usually the end of Labor
Speaker 1: Day marks the like final stretch of campaigning. Now the
Speaker 1: it's as as if it hasn't got weird. I believe
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna get weirder. And I don't even know
Speaker 1: you know, like I I'm I giggle because I'm in
Speaker 1: this with you. It's just gonna get weirder. Now. Why
Speaker 1: it's gonna get weirder is this and this is the
Speaker 1: season we're in now, And what's going on in the
Speaker 1: news is you have to ratchet up because the race
Speaker 1: is so close. No matter what anybody is saying, uh,
Speaker 1: as far as the campaigns are concerned, like or what
Speaker 1: you may feel like, Dan, there's so much momentum here.
Speaker 1: There's so much momentum there. The race at the end
Speaker 1: of the day is pretty even, which means the only
Speaker 1: way to win is to get people to actually come
Speaker 1: to the show. You have to come vote because you
Speaker 1: can have this stuff. But if y'all don't care, if y'all,
Speaker 1: if you don't show up, you startin't gonna win. So
Speaker 1: right now, that means that foods is gonna be They
Speaker 1: gonna be in your inboxes, They're gonna be on your TV,
Speaker 1: they gonna be in your your text messages. Somebody don't
Speaker 1: leak your number, and you getting text from people from
Speaker 1: one of these campaigns and both of these campaigns you
Speaker 1: ain't lying to me. I know what's happening. So and
Speaker 1: it's because they just need people to come through. Like
Speaker 1: you can have whatever feeling you want, you gotta come through.
Speaker 1: And that's where where where that is right now. I
Speaker 1: am currently about to record an episode on the two
Speaker 1: Economic Plans because they've kind of been released. Uh and
Speaker 1: you know we we we uh were going through these things.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, like like white parents looking
Speaker 1: for lights in their hair because I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know about black people, like they lights don't be
Speaker 1: living in our hair greases, So like I did, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know lights was a thing anyway. Uh what else? Oh,
Speaker 1: Disney pulled the plug on ESPN if you had Direct
Speaker 1: TV and you was watching the US Open Yoll scream
Speaker 1: with black because Disney was like, y'all not paying us
Speaker 1: brad TV broke, Like I don't like broke is in
Speaker 1: not not having money, but broke is in broken for
Speaker 1: like what is going on? So Disney got to deal
Speaker 1: with ESPN. And Disney last year was beefing with Charter
Speaker 1: because they was like, you're not paying us, right and
Speaker 1: Charter was like nah, fam, Like we got to figure
Speaker 1: out how to sell this product. They was like, nigga, no,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna do it with our channel. So Disney
Speaker 1: and Direct TV beefing, and we one week before the
Speaker 1: NFL starts. So, uh, if y'all don't want these white
Speaker 1: people to riot, boy white people Mexican's from Texas and
Speaker 1: and black Raider fans, they they for the burdens, cutry down,
Speaker 1: y'all figure out ESPN. Y'all worried about the you worried
Speaker 1: about the election. You better get this, you better get
Speaker 1: this football back on. In some personal news, I am
Speaker 1: on a show in PBS called Reconnecting Roots. It's season four.
Speaker 1: I'm on the episode about journalism. I don't know which
Speaker 1: episode that is, but the show called Reconnecting Roots. They
Speaker 1: want to em me last year. I'm on the show.
Speaker 1: It's safe for the whole family. It's a little like
Speaker 1: kind of fun take on just like history and and
Speaker 1: just Americana, So please tune in. It was a super
Speaker 1: honor to be a part of Reconnecting Roots. It's on PBS.
Speaker 1: And also, you know RFK bent the knee, y'all, so
Speaker 1: if it were me, if I were an RFK fan,
Speaker 1: this is literally selling This is what selling out means.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand. This is what's selling out means. Right,
Speaker 1: you're the anti establishment, You're the like you're that dude, right,
Speaker 1: like you're the anti establishment. The system's broken. Both these
Speaker 1: parties are flawed. I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bring a new way to do it unless you give
Speaker 1: me a job. I like, wait, ain't that okay? I
Speaker 1: will end my principles if you pay me. Is that's
Speaker 1: what selling out means. So I'm just at least that's
Speaker 1: what I thought. Now what do I know? Either way?
Speaker 1: I think I think JD. Van's better watch his back.
Speaker 1: He about to be drew bledzel. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do the news is like this, Okay,
Speaker 1: So words we throw around all the time, direct, democracy, republic,
Speaker 1: democratic republic, all these different terms for which we organize
Speaker 1: our government. Sometimes they're thrown around so much. And seventh
Speaker 1: grade was so long ago. It's like, what is when
Speaker 1: you do Americans? You do America eleventh grade? So seventh
Speaker 1: grade is American history and then eleventh grades, at least
Speaker 1: in California, that's oh, it was what it lost The
Speaker 1: terms become they stop meaning stuff, because it's like that's
Speaker 1: why by the time you get radicalized in your twenties
Speaker 1: and then disillusioned in your thirties, you like, I don't
Speaker 1: care about none of this. I'm not voting like voting
Speaker 1: over because what difference is a vate the country don't
Speaker 1: match the marketing content. So you're just like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what idiot is mean? Is why am I even
Speaker 1: what am I even doing? You told me to go
Speaker 1: pick a guy, and then on the day of the election,
Speaker 1: you talking about this state gave you this much, and
Speaker 1: you change in the colors on the screen, and it's like, then,
Speaker 1: what did I even what did I? What are we doing?
Speaker 1: You like for I voted for Jill sty I voted
Speaker 1: for Like You're like, I didn't vote for either of
Speaker 1: these fools and they're not even on the screen. I
Speaker 1: get it. What does it even mean? You talk about
Speaker 1: electoral votes, then people talk about popular vote and electoral vote,
Speaker 1: and then how many times if you anywhere within a
Speaker 1: ten mile radius of my age, hell yeah, even a
Speaker 1: fifteen mile radius of my age, how many times the
Speaker 1: president didn't win a popular vote? You mean to tell
Speaker 1: me more of us voted more Americans voted for that dude,
Speaker 1: and he lost. What does any of this mean? I
Speaker 1: feel you today. I'm gonna try to help Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: we did an episode last season in season two called
Speaker 1: the End of the Year Pizza Party. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: help you understand the difference between a direct democracy and
Speaker 1: a democratic republic. Okay, you could go back in there
Speaker 1: and listen to that. Now, every other person we vote
Speaker 1: for in our country, for every other elected position, is
Speaker 1: a direct democracy, meaning the people who got the most
Speaker 1: votes wins. Except for our president. That's the only office
Speaker 1: that we do the way that we do that has
Speaker 1: this sort of representative electoral college situation. So today I'm
Speaker 1: gonna talk about how it works, the history of it,
Speaker 1: and arguments for and against because it's it's it's weird. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: some of y'all may notice already. If you do, that's dope.
Speaker 1: If you don't, we only you won't learn today. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do this, all right, So when your original for
Speaker 1: aims of the Constitution, we're putting together the Constitution, membor,
Speaker 1: this is a draft, right, so they have to write
Speaker 1: the thing. Then they got to go back home and
Speaker 1: make sure that people from their colony would actually be
Speaker 1: down with this doc. Now it's Philadelphia, it's in the summer,
Speaker 1: it's in the seventeen hundred. Y'all wearing powder, y'all got wigs.
Speaker 1: It is hot as hell in them rooms. I just
Speaker 1: went like, like, let's not romanticize, Like it's just man sweat,
Speaker 1: and you got marrying Europeans. They ain't believe in bathing.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you a little bit about black people.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I was just on the my Mama told
Speaker 1: me podcasts with the with the hoies over there, man Langston,
Speaker 1: and like we discussed how we're talking about washing chicken
Speaker 1: and that despite the science that is probably provable, I'm
Speaker 1: still gonna keep washing my chicken because that's nasty. And
Speaker 1: the thing is like cleanliness. I think it's it's the unsung.
Speaker 1: It's like the black thought of blackness, Like it's really
Speaker 1: the goat. It's like musty is almost sinful to black people,
Speaker 1: Like we don't be ashy. You don't be musty. It's
Speaker 1: like you're disrespecting your ancestors if you not clean, like
Speaker 1: one understand, like the peturely smelling rampits. Ooh, seriously, yo,
Speaker 1: that was a straight up, real deal, holy feel earthquake. Man.
Speaker 1: That's why I was like serious. I had to hit
Speaker 1: stop real quick because I was like this a lot
Speaker 1: got dug. Listen, man, this is oh man, that this
Speaker 1: this is making me channel all my old folks from
Speaker 1: the church, like, oh Lord, I mean, Jesus is coming soon.
Speaker 1: The thing is it was in the epicenter was Pasadena,
Speaker 1: and I was just a four point seven. But because
Speaker 1: it was so close you, like anybody from anybody, I
Speaker 1: bet you everybody from here is all talked about where
Speaker 1: they were during the north Ridge or the Wittyo or
Speaker 1: the Silmar earthquake because it was so may once but
Speaker 1: six six or seven or something like that that like,
Speaker 1: I mean it took out the five freeway, yo, Like ah,
Speaker 1: that earthquake was crazy. And listen, I'll be sleeping through
Speaker 1: them like natives like if don't wake me up under
Speaker 1: a four point zero, well, nigga, it is a four
Speaker 1: point seven, so you get up, yup, Oh man, I
Speaker 1: ain't an calm down. Don't cut this out, Matt, this
Speaker 1: is fun. I cut We really out here lost scandalous anyway,
Speaker 1: but truly smelling armpits. We listened black people washed like
Speaker 1: we believe in that. So I'm just imagining a room
Speaker 1: for the seventeen hundreds white people in Philly just hot,
Speaker 1: ass nasty, just Satan's boogers, just hot. So just imagine
Speaker 1: a work retreat with no air conditioner and a bunch
Speaker 1: of alphas who all believe that they got a vision
Speaker 1: for the future. And you making up not a job description,
Speaker 1: not a project. You're making up a country. You're making
Speaker 1: up a government like you're making it up. So you
Speaker 1: got to take pieces from here and from here. It
Speaker 1: just try to cobble the thing together. Now, just like
Speaker 1: every other job that you got, you break off into subcommittees,
Speaker 1: and each little subcommittee is supposed to figure out a
Speaker 1: certain part of building this particular government. That's why you
Speaker 1: got all the articles and just trying to figure it out,
Speaker 1: like what are okay, what are we doing here? We
Speaker 1: have this dope idea, but of like you know, no
Speaker 1: taxation was out ready to say okay, cool, okay, now,
Speaker 1: so like you gotta make a or we're gonna so
Speaker 1: we're just gonna make a country. Yeah. So now you
Speaker 1: got these subcommittees. Now, there was one committee that was
Speaker 1: called the Committee of Unfinished Parts. Oh my god, this
Speaker 1: for everything we've forgot. You have to remember at this point,
Speaker 1: every colony don't even use the same dialog. So like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, So how do you buy something in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia if you come it from Virginia? What we posted?
Speaker 1: How do we we need a tran How you do that?
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, we talked about it so many times
Speaker 1: in the other things, about the other episodes about the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court to where the foolsbuses got tired, because it
Speaker 1: just say America has a Supreme Court. It don't say
Speaker 1: no other rules besides that. Look, we tied. We're gonna
Speaker 1: lead that for the Look, look we'll lead that for
Speaker 1: the night staff. You know what I'm saying. That's the
Speaker 1: next gen. You know you feel we'll lead that for them.
Speaker 1: Y'all figure that out. We can't tell the future. Dog
Speaker 1: the Committee of the Unfinished Parts, and it was led
Speaker 1: by a brother from New Jersey named David Brarely, right,
Speaker 1: And they had figured out everything except for how do
Speaker 1: we elect the president. Why was that so important was
Speaker 1: because like again, they're inventing the internet in their time,
Speaker 1: like the equivalent of like you're making up the internet
Speaker 1: and you're trying to explain email to somebody, like you're
Speaker 1: trying to explain like it's just it has not been
Speaker 1: seen before. This concept of the president that they had
Speaker 1: in the head was like, okay, so it's not a monarch,
Speaker 1: but it's also it's not a dictator. It's not a
Speaker 1: like what like how are well how do they become it?
Speaker 1: And how do we protect this person from becoming like
Speaker 1: a monarch? Like what who gets to choose it? And
Speaker 1: and like how do how do we figure out? We
Speaker 1: know we want this separation of powers, we don't want one,
Speaker 1: So like, okay, you take the power, you break it
Speaker 1: into three, but you still need a dude. But how
Speaker 1: does that do? Is that dude in charge of everybody else?
Speaker 1: Like how do we make sure? What do we what
Speaker 1: are we even doing here? So we need to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to elect this particular office. So the
Speaker 1: concept was at first the Congress would choose because you
Speaker 1: can't just trust it to be a direct democracy, because
Speaker 1: don't everybody can't read right, So they were like and
Speaker 1: again you remember they were so they were so afraid
Speaker 1: of this person having too much power, So what's the
Speaker 1: compromise Because it's like if it's if it's chosen by
Speaker 1: the Congress, then like, how do you protect from corruption
Speaker 1: from there? Like so then, now, so that means that
Speaker 1: the Congress and the and the executive branch get to
Speaker 1: be in cahoots and they can make their plans. Do
Speaker 1: they payola and everything? So they was like, okay, well
Speaker 1: that can't. So somebody had to come up with some
Speaker 1: sort of compromise that would not be perfect, but at
Speaker 1: least would be like, all right, a middle ground. Now
Speaker 1: what a lot of historians suggest, which is the part
Speaker 1: that really is interesting to me, is Okay, here's what
Speaker 1: you're balancing between. You're balancing between the power of small
Speaker 1: states and large states, right, and then the power of
Speaker 1: slave states and free states. Which is why a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of activists in my world that are just like,
Speaker 1: hey man, it's origins are racist, and its origins are
Speaker 1: really more around slavery, and it ain't really around fairness.
Speaker 1: It's around making sure that the slave states feel happy.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna get to that a little bit later.
Speaker 1: So they was like, Okay, we know it's not perfect,
Speaker 1: but we know some certain states are bigger than others.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to have more population than others. And
Speaker 1: we know that, Like, there's got to be a way
Speaker 1: to make sure that everybody gets a fair say. And
Speaker 1: it can't just be to Congress, because y'all can make
Speaker 1: deals separate from what the people want, and then you
Speaker 1: can't really trust the people because the people don't a
Speaker 1: lot of times they don't know what they talk about,
Speaker 1: and they'll just mess around. Just make this person a king.
Speaker 1: So this is what we came up with. Now, remember
Speaker 1: since they just writing a draft and these people got
Speaker 1: to go back home to convince they folks, you have, like,
Speaker 1: these colonies evolved in so many different ways. Some are cities,
Speaker 1: some are agriculturals, some are slave states, some are free states.
Speaker 1: They all have different interests and they all want to
Speaker 1: protect their own interests. So how you're going to get
Speaker 1: everybody to agree on anything is like almost an insurmount
Speaker 1: or hill. Let alone, who won't be the dog on president? Now,
Speaker 1: how it's supposed to work on paper is like this.
Speaker 1: So the electoral college are the electorates that actually vote
Speaker 1: for the president. So states select these representatives, and each
Speaker 1: state has a certain amount of delegates that are supposed
Speaker 1: to vote in alignment of the popular vote for the states.
Speaker 1: So we go, we basically tell our selected electors. Now
Speaker 1: you remember this drama in that Trump going through where
Speaker 1: he picked what's called fake electors, which apparently he gonna
Speaker 1: be immune from. But so the state selects these electors
Speaker 1: and they say, based on the popular vote of the
Speaker 1: state that they represent, this is what our state votes.
Speaker 1: Every four years, we just make a Congress, a separate congress.
Speaker 1: That was the idea of Congress is supposed to be
Speaker 1: choosing the president. We can't trust this cong and we
Speaker 1: just make one every four years. We're just going to
Speaker 1: call them electors. Their only job is to cast the
Speaker 1: votes for the president of the minor states. How each
Speaker 1: state gets electors is like this. You take the number
Speaker 1: of House of Representatives right and the number of Senators,
Speaker 1: and you add that up. That's how many electors you get.
Speaker 1: Since these numbers are based on population, right, Texas gets
Speaker 1: a lot more electoral votes right then, like Maryland. So
Speaker 1: that's why Cali has so many electoral votes. Now, what
Speaker 1: they want to do is try to make sure that
Speaker 1: this is also set up so it's not so proportional
Speaker 1: to where big states still get all the power just
Speaker 1: because they big states, which is like, well, if that's
Speaker 1: the case, well that's stupid. It's you'll just it's still
Speaker 1: if it's just population, then why are we going through
Speaker 1: all this? So even though like a smaller state has
Speaker 1: less votes, they count for more. I know, it don't
Speaker 1: make no sense, it really don't, but it's the weight
Speaker 1: of their vote. So how that works is like this, like, okay,
Speaker 1: so the amount of representatives plus the senators. Right, every
Speaker 1: state only has two senators, and your members of the
Speaker 1: House represent particular districts. So let's just say your state
Speaker 1: has four districts and that state has four districts. So
Speaker 1: if that's the case, you both still only have four
Speaker 1: representatives in the House. Now, the size of my district
Speaker 1: might be four times the amount of your district, but
Speaker 1: just because your district small shouldn't mean that your vote
Speaker 1: don't matter as much. So that's why you go by that. Now,
Speaker 1: California has fifty five votes because we just have that
Speaker 1: many districts. But if one district has one hundred thousand people,
Speaker 1: that's one representative and your district only got five thousand people,
Speaker 1: that's still one representative. So that's what we mean by
Speaker 1: the vote weighs more. All right, Yeah, everybody gets heard
Speaker 1: and that the big states don't always win. That's the concept,
Speaker 1: which is how someone could win the popular vote, meaning
Speaker 1: more people voted for them, but they lost the electoral college.
Speaker 1: So your district of five hundred thousand people that voted
Speaker 1: for candidate A, it's still just one electoral vote as
Speaker 1: compared to the person with only five thousand people they
Speaker 1: voted for candidate B. It's still just one vote. So
Speaker 1: that's what we mean by smaller states votes way more
Speaker 1: than bigger states because less people can move a needle
Speaker 1: as long as one the electors do what the voters say.
Speaker 1: And two, conceptually, what they trying to say is it's like, yo,
Speaker 1: if you got a concentrated fan base, like if you
Speaker 1: like like remember I talked about with what's the Florida today,
Speaker 1: Ron de Santis, if you got like a concentrated fan
Speaker 1: base where you really popping in one area, that means
Speaker 1: percentage wise for the country, you may, if there's enough
Speaker 1: people there, you may be able to get enough votes.
Speaker 1: But the problem is if the rest of the country
Speaker 1: don't really care about you, who cares about the percentage
Speaker 1: that you have in that one spot. What the electoral
Speaker 1: college was supposed to do is to make sure that
Speaker 1: your fan base is spread across the whole country, because
Speaker 1: you got to govern the whole country, so you still
Speaker 1: got to earn points. You can't just concentrate. You can't
Speaker 1: just focus on Cali and be like I'm gonna win Cali,
Speaker 1: therefore I'm gonna win the country like this. So it's
Speaker 1: supposed to protect you in concept. So again, the first
Speaker 1: thought was Congress, just choose the guy. Then they thought
Speaker 1: maybe governors could choose the guy. But then they were like,
Speaker 1: it's just just don't feel right. And then they was like,
Speaker 1: what can't be a direct it can't be a dire choice,
Speaker 1: And it was like, not just because you just don't
Speaker 1: have faith in the people, but it's because of one
Speaker 1: word slavery. Next, so obviously, since this is seventeen hundred,
Speaker 1: slavery is still legal and there is still a push.
Speaker 1: Even back then, there was a push to outlaws lavery.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, it was in one of the drafts
Speaker 1: of the Constitution, the outlost lavery. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you notice. It was in one of the drafts, and
Speaker 1: they was like, ah, we'll deal with it later. Just God,
Speaker 1: I can't stand these Thomas Jefferson, he was the one
Speaker 1: to put it in there. He was like, Yo, we
Speaker 1: should probably I don't know, guys, we should probably deal
Speaker 1: with this weird though. But the simplest answer is the
Speaker 1: Southern states are like, we have more people that live
Speaker 1: in our states. The only problem is they so racist
Speaker 1: that you don't think your people is people. So when
Speaker 1: you counting delegate, you counting votes. We like full a
Speaker 1: full third fourth half of our population can't vote, and
Speaker 1: far beard for them to enfranchise they slaves. Hell, y'all
Speaker 1: know already when we talk about or when they talk
Speaker 1: about the people, they don't mean the people. They mean
Speaker 1: land owning, tax paying white men. Specifically. They ain't trust
Speaker 1: them either. They was like, I don't know, y'all. This
Speaker 1: mob like, y'all don't be knowing what you're talking about saying.
Speaker 1: The South is saying we will always lose because the
Speaker 1: big chunk of our population can't vote. This was the
Speaker 1: South's argument against a direct democracy. So the North, most
Speaker 1: of them were like, man, we just don't hold to
Speaker 1: like moborol. We believe in democracy. We believe like it
Speaker 1: should be a government by the people for the people.
Speaker 1: But the people be dumb, so let's just put it
Speaker 1: to the people. And then as we add up the states,
Speaker 1: the South was like, no matter how you slice it,
Speaker 1: you know whether the Congress chooses it. And if the
Speaker 1: Congress chooses it, again, we don't have enough representatives there
Speaker 1: because half of our population that would be a part
Speaker 1: of that representation thing, they don't vote or they can't vote.
Speaker 1: If it was a direct democracy, again, half of our
Speaker 1: population can't vote. So like, we're never gonna win. We'll
Speaker 1: never get our way. You guys, the North will always
Speaker 1: get what it wants because there's no way for us
Speaker 1: to be, according to them, fairly represented. James Madison just
Speaker 1: said it out loud. It's like we y'all like, we
Speaker 1: gonna want laws and people that's gonna help us get
Speaker 1: our bread. But I know y'all don't like the way
Speaker 1: we move. Y'all show you like our product, but y'all
Speaker 1: don't like the way we move, So you're gonna keep
Speaker 1: making laws that's gonna make the way we move not work.
Speaker 1: So like and remember again, this is a draft. You
Speaker 1: gotta go home and get this signed. Madison was like,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna go nobody in Souse is gonna go for this.
Speaker 1: We can't do a direct amount. You have to come
Speaker 1: up with something else. So what they came up with
Speaker 1: was the three fist compromise. This is why I be
Speaker 1: mad when people say that they no such thing as
Speaker 1: systemic racism or that like we've never had a problem.
Speaker 1: Like it was in their interest, Like I don't understand
Speaker 1: what you It was in your interest to enfranchise black
Speaker 1: people like you could have this would have helped, It
Speaker 1: would have helped you. So it was like, aw, we
Speaker 1: can't accept that, so we're gonna do three fits. Now
Speaker 1: how it worked is this, remember delegate votes or electric Yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: go to say representative votes are based on population. So
Speaker 1: they're like, well, technically we do have this population. So
Speaker 1: the bigger the states population, the more money you'd receive
Speaker 1: for your federal budget, and the more representation in Congress.
Speaker 1: So like they want to be able to send more
Speaker 1: representatives to Congress so we can have more political power, right,
Speaker 1: And the Northern States was like, now, wait a damn minute.
Speaker 1: You just told me they're not humans. You want to
Speaker 1: treat them like cattle, and now you want to count
Speaker 1: them towards your population. Nah, fam, bring that same energy.
Speaker 1: This ain't gonna work for us. The Southern States was like,
Speaker 1: I don't care, it will work for you. You want
Speaker 1: us to stay in this union, this is what we'
Speaker 1: finna do. We need our enslaved people to be counted.
Speaker 1: North was like, this is absolutely ridiculous, man. You can't
Speaker 1: have it both ways. And they was like, you want
Speaker 1: us to state this what we demand. So they said, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: this is what we're gonna do. Here's the deal, y'all
Speaker 1: stick around. We still need to make a country. But
Speaker 1: the enslaved people need to count as three fifths towards
Speaker 1: your population. So three fifths of a human does that?
Speaker 1: I so each person is three fifths of a person.
Speaker 1: So you got to understand fractions. Each black person is
Speaker 1: counts as three fists of person. So you need for
Speaker 1: it to get to five fifths to be one person,
Speaker 1: you need two black people and then you get kind
Speaker 1: of half a person because they three out of five, right,
Speaker 1: it was two point five out of five. Then you
Speaker 1: need two black people with equal one white dude, So
Speaker 1: now you need are you following me? This? How absurd?
Speaker 1: This is this is racism, do to your braining. State
Speaker 1: of Massachusetts was like, so, so let's make the math. Math.
Speaker 1: What you're saying is for the three fits compromise, then
Speaker 1: two black people is six fifths, So that's one in
Speaker 1: one fish. You're telling me two black people equals one
Speaker 1: in one fifth white dude. So then you add a
Speaker 1: third black dude, right, and that's one in four fifths.
Speaker 1: So then you add a third black dude. Right now,
Speaker 1: that's two and two fifths. Okay, got it? What are
Speaker 1: y'all serious? What is even? What are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Hell no, now, remember it's hot as hell. Fools is
Speaker 1: getting tied. I'm tired of talking about this. You stink
Speaker 1: your breath steak and this is ridiculous. And so what
Speaker 1: do you do when you at work and y'all can't
Speaker 1: come up with something? You know what y'all do? Y'all
Speaker 1: take a break, everybody. Okay, everybody, take a break. Y'all
Speaker 1: go home. We're gonna leave this for the night staff. Now,
Speaker 1: you folks in relationships, I'm gonna say you married folks
Speaker 1: straight or have sid generally, there's one of y'all in
Speaker 1: this relationship that can't make no decisions when ain't hungry
Speaker 1: or when they hot, you have a mess? Might just
Speaker 1: they just pissy when they hot. I'm up my wife
Speaker 1: to refer to her by her prefix. Listen, we got
Speaker 1: a scale of one to my homeboy Holding's wedding. How
Speaker 1: hungry are you? Obviously there's a story behind Holden's wedding.
Speaker 1: I now know when she gets to about a seven,
Speaker 1: I just need to make the call. She can't decide
Speaker 1: what she want to eat. She's past she's past it,
Speaker 1: So I just need to make sure food gets in
Speaker 1: her body because she Nothing she gonna say is logical.
Speaker 1: I'm like that when I'm tired. Some people, when they hot,
Speaker 1: they're just mad at the world. When they hot, you
Speaker 1: can't make no. We can't make no decision when I'm hot.
Speaker 1: Like my mom was like that, leave me alone boys hot.
Speaker 1: She used to listen. You know how many times I
Speaker 1: got in trouble just because it was hot, Like, you
Speaker 1: don't ask for no, Mama, let me long son is hot. Oh,
Speaker 1: just can't make those decisions when you hot. I'm like
Speaker 1: that when I'm tired. When I'm tired, or when I'm
Speaker 1: worried about money, don't ask me no. Questions. I'll be
Speaker 1: snapping at my children, just saying the most absurd I
Speaker 1: hear them. Stop all that giggle it why because I'm tired. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you gotta put yourself in these men shoes. They liket.
Speaker 1: It's hot, y'all being dumb as a bag of rocks.
Speaker 1: Just look, I'm okay, I'm just gonna go home. They
Speaker 1: left it for the night staff, and that entered the
Speaker 1: Committee of the Unresolved People, and they was like, okay, word,
Speaker 1: here we go. That's what we're gonna do. Y'all don't
Speaker 1: want the Congress to do it. Y'all feel like the
Speaker 1: director ain't gonna work because your population don't work. And
Speaker 1: so we're gonna take this three fists compromise. That means
Speaker 1: you're gonna have more state representatives inside the House. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna add up your state representatives with your little
Speaker 1: three fists weird old stuff. Okay, connect it to do
Speaker 1: your senators because every state only gets two senators, and
Speaker 1: then that's the amount of electors you get, and then
Speaker 1: how you choose your electors is up to you. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, listen to the point
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. This was created to make the slave
Speaker 1: states feel better. So who ends up winning are states
Speaker 1: with lower populations and states that have slaves. That's who
Speaker 1: ends up winning in this situation, in the state that
Speaker 1: it's in. Now, now that's one point oh. Remember so
Speaker 1: a version one point Oh, you voted and number one
Speaker 1: got the president, a number two got the vice president.
Speaker 1: That's how it worked at first. But then check this out.
Speaker 1: In eighteen hundreds the run between Jefferson and Burr, they
Speaker 1: both got majorities. It was a tie seventy three electoral votes. Well,
Speaker 1: who's the president? Like a tie? So now what do
Speaker 1: you have to do? Well, now you've got to go
Speaker 1: to the the House of Representatives. The problem is the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives was full of Federalists, which is what
Speaker 1: John Adams was who lost. Enter the third body problem.
Speaker 1: It's like the three body problem is space. Fam. This
Speaker 1: is why it's hard for us to get our brain
Speaker 1: around because we are stuck in this two party system.
Speaker 1: It used to not be like that. You know, you
Speaker 1: had the Whigs, the Federalists, the Democratic republic Then you
Speaker 1: had the Democrats themselves and the Republicans themselves. These fools
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do because you remember The Framers
Speaker 1: hated the idea of political parties. It sounded too much
Speaker 1: like just sounds too britishy, you feel me, But so
Speaker 1: they didn't put anything in the Constitution about it. Nobody
Speaker 1: thought it would ever turn into this. The Federalists, who
Speaker 1: they just thought the other fools was traders. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to choose one of your all, and we all
Speaker 1: like neither one of you. So in that position, right,
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton, you know, the famed Alexander Hampton, a Federalist,
Speaker 1: like lobby this party to choose Thomas Jefferson. Like. So
Speaker 1: that's eventually what happened. And they was like, okay, listen,
Speaker 1: we can't let this happen again. We thought we had,
Speaker 1: We thought we had something going here with this electoral college.
Speaker 1: Everybody think you think it was ever going to I
Speaker 1: don't think it was ever gonna have no tie, right,
Speaker 1: So out of that came the Twelfth Amendment, Right, So,
Speaker 1: electoral college two point zero, which is the type that
Speaker 1: we have today, which basically says, now you have to
Speaker 1: put in one vote for the president and one vote
Speaker 1: for the vice Now, obviously, the way we lobby, we
Speaker 1: lobbied president and vice president as a ticketed pair. But
Speaker 1: in theory, it's not written on our on our ballots anymore.
Speaker 1: But in theory, you could vote for one president on
Speaker 1: one party and the vice president all the electors could
Speaker 1: if they so choose to. Now, let me bring in
Speaker 1: the three fists compromise back in. If it wasn't for
Speaker 1: the three fists compromise, Thomas Jefferson would have never had
Speaker 1: enough electoral votes anyway. Remember, because they're adding them. Adding
Speaker 1: us black people made the district bigger, even though we
Speaker 1: didn't we didn't vote for the man, like, we didn't
Speaker 1: vote at all, but just our presence added to the
Speaker 1: size of the Southern States. It gave them more electoral
Speaker 1: votes because they counted us as slaves into their population
Speaker 1: to grow their districts. Which means that Thomas Jefferson got
Speaker 1: electoral votes based on people that ain't vote for him,
Speaker 1: not only people didn't vote, and people didn't vote at
Speaker 1: all because remember we couldn't vote. So I mean, is
Speaker 1: that a democracy? Like what are we doing here? This
Speaker 1: is what I mean by it works for the Southern
Speaker 1: States like it worked for the slave It worked for
Speaker 1: pro slavery people worked they were you had this cover
Speaker 1: of small states. But y'all, y'all was cheating. I don't
Speaker 1: know how it was to explain it. So then finally
Speaker 1: you just just just like, since slavery not only is evil,
Speaker 1: three fish compromise is absurd, teared about the country, you
Speaker 1: got the Civil War, and then the thirteenth Amendment essentially
Speaker 1: ended the three fix compromise because we're citizens. But then
Speaker 1: you know, we could vote for a little bit. And
Speaker 1: what we do after we started voting, we started electing
Speaker 1: black people that ain't like that started the black codes
Speaker 1: and all of the ways to disenfranchise it as voters,
Speaker 1: and you know, all the voting registration and all these
Speaker 1: different things that were made to make sure that black
Speaker 1: people could have vote. Because once we started voting food,
Speaker 1: we started winning all the way into the codifying of
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow laws. This happened obviously from we talk
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five to the nineteen sixties, so for one
Speaker 1: hundred years. This was going on until the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: movement and us given getting our rights to vote without
Speaker 1: all of the other Jim Crow stuff, which as a conclusion,
Speaker 1: going back to the beginning part should tell you this
Speaker 1: this how important voting is. You'd like, think about all
Speaker 1: the rigamarole these people has went through to make sure
Speaker 1: we vote, don't do it. So I'm just saying now
Speaker 1: I'm with I stand with the rest of cools on
Speaker 1: media to be like, you need to vote, and you
Speaker 1: need to vote, and voting's not enough. So don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, I'm just saying, Yo, bananas moothie needs to
Speaker 1: have bananas in it. What a metaphor. Now, it's the
Speaker 1: system we have. Of course, it's got flaws, and I
Speaker 1: personally think it was made for the seventeen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: I think that there's some changes that need to be made.
Speaker 1: Having said that, like I say before, even about capitalism,
Speaker 1: you in the ocean, you might as well swim. I'm
Speaker 1: obviously selling y'all a podcast, and I need y'all to
Speaker 1: listen to these ads because I have yet to recoup.
Speaker 1: I have yet to make a royalty from this show,
Speaker 1: so I need most streams and I need y'all to
Speaker 1: listen to the ads. So that I mean, at some
Speaker 1: point I got to I still this third fourth season,
Speaker 1: whatever I fourth year doing this, I still ain't made
Speaker 1: no money from it except for the original contract, which
Speaker 1: is great. But I love it make some extra money
Speaker 1: for that. Anyway, I'm in the ocean, I need to swim.
Speaker 1: But since you in the ocean, since you in this system,
Speaker 1: you might as well swim. So now you fast forward
Speaker 1: to now with all the ups and downs of how
Speaker 1: to twist and turn and the wheeling and the dealing,
Speaker 1: and then the fake electors that happened, you know, with
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election when Trump ain't liked the thing,
Speaker 1: so we hired a whole new set of electors. Because
Speaker 1: remember again, it's up to the state to choose electors
Speaker 1: and how they choose it. The government or the constitution
Speaker 1: don't really mention. It's up to the state. That's what
Speaker 1: the state says, that's what the concert say. It's up
Speaker 1: to stay how you choose your electors. These are just
Speaker 1: the amount that you get. Now in our country, the
Speaker 1: system is it's a winner take all. Let's just say
Speaker 1: your electors vote three to two for Kamala in this
Speaker 1: upcoming So your state had five electors, you voted three
Speaker 1: to two for Kamala. So that means that a big
Speaker 1: portion of y'all's population actually voted for Trump. But it
Speaker 1: don't matter because since three out of the two voted
Speaker 1: for Kamala, all of the electoral points go to her.
Speaker 1: It don't matter what percentage of the population actually chose
Speaker 1: the other person. You get the whole pot, even though
Speaker 1: you may have barely won a little over half the pot.
Speaker 1: You get the whole pot. Which again is how a
Speaker 1: person could win a popular vote and lose the electoral
Speaker 1: college is because you get the whole pot despite you
Speaker 1: know whatever amount of the population actually chose that person,
Speaker 1: because it's still it might have been more actual humans
Speaker 1: in that particular state than the other state, but since
Speaker 1: that state's electoral votes doesn't weigh as much as the
Speaker 1: or weighs more than the other, and they got all
Speaker 1: the points, that's how they win. You could scroll back
Speaker 1: to what I mean by weight of their vote if
Speaker 1: you need a quick refresher. Again, the volume of humans
Speaker 1: inside of your district that that representative represents doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You still have one that still goes towards one electoral
Speaker 1: college vote. So if I am a district of one
Speaker 1: and you're a district of a thousand, right, if a
Speaker 1: thousand of y'all voted for Kamala and I voted for Trump,
Speaker 1: my vote weighs just as much as a thousand of
Speaker 1: y'all y'all vote is one one thousandth the weight of mind.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean by that. And it's again, so
Speaker 1: that my one vote doesn't get drowned out. Is at
Speaker 1: least what is sold to us, which is where you
Speaker 1: get stuff like jerrymandering and all that stuff that we've
Speaker 1: talked about before. It's and this was in the spirit
Speaker 1: of being fair. Now, what that tells a candidate is,
Speaker 1: you're not so concerned about what the people think per se.
Speaker 1: You're concerned about the electoral college map, which one of
Speaker 1: these states have the most points. That's when you hear
Speaker 1: these things called swing states, purple states, the big Blue Wall,
Speaker 1: like these are things that have not necessarily anything to
Speaker 1: do with the amount of humans in the state. It's
Speaker 1: the amount of electoral college points you get from it.
Speaker 1: So what that tells the candidate is, since it's a
Speaker 1: winner take all, I don't even need to try in
Speaker 1: states that I know I'm not even gonna win. You
Speaker 1: win by being the first one to get to two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy electoral college votes. So you look at
Speaker 1: the map and you try to figure out looking at
Speaker 1: that map, all fifty states where the delegates are broken
Speaker 1: up from, and you just go, how can I That's
Speaker 1: how you make the math work. How do I get
Speaker 1: to two hundred and seventy? Which states do I need
Speaker 1: to win? Right to get to that? Which states do
Speaker 1: I already know? Like forget it throughout the map. I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna win that, So I don't even calculate that.
Speaker 1: I'll fight for the ones that could help my math math.
Speaker 1: That's the strategy. This is where the term battleground state
Speaker 1: comes from, because it's like, Yo, this is a toss up.
Speaker 1: I might possibly, I could possibly grab up all these points.
Speaker 1: So if you are being smart about your energy, you
Speaker 1: being smart about your budget, you being smart about your ads,
Speaker 1: where your voters are, and which one do you have
Speaker 1: a better chance of snatching up all the points? That's
Speaker 1: where you put your money in. You put your money,
Speaker 1: your interest in where you think you could find people
Speaker 1: that's gonna get you the whole pot. So you take
Speaker 1: California for example. I think this is the best example.
Speaker 1: California is a blue state, Are you sure? Because it's
Speaker 1: blue because of the Bay Area in LA there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of people there. Bru You Kaipa, Orange County,
Speaker 1: Kerrent County. The middle is I mean, it's the middle's rule.
Speaker 1: Like they're farmers in there. You go up north to
Speaker 1: Wayrika up in the mountains, they trump folk. It's very conservative.
Speaker 1: Remember they they even thought about seceding. There was gonna
Speaker 1: be Jefferson, the little spot in between and that little
Speaker 1: land that might as well be Oregon at the top
Speaker 1: of California and in the bottom of Oregon. In the
Speaker 1: top of California, they was gonna be their own state.
Speaker 1: And then Pearl Harbor happens. So that's why they do it.
Speaker 1: But like that's it's It may seem like California is
Speaker 1: this bastion of progressivism, but when you think about the
Speaker 1: fact that like dog somebody in Visalia or you know
Speaker 1: why Rika got to pay the same gas prices as
Speaker 1: us in San Francisco, that's diabolical. They should not have
Speaker 1: to pay the same people. They should not have to
Speaker 1: pay the same price. Like that's crazy, you know, But
Speaker 1: that's just how it is. Because it's one state and
Speaker 1: California is worth fifty five points, California worth fifty five
Speaker 1: points towards your electoral map. You have to ask yourself
Speaker 1: is the juice worth to squeeze? And if you like,
Speaker 1: ain't no way in the world I'm gonna win California.
Speaker 1: Why would you even try? Like, I'm not even gonna
Speaker 1: try to convince them, because even if because let's just
Speaker 1: say I win half of the half of the points,
Speaker 1: if I get half of the votes at California or
Speaker 1: right under half, it don't matter because all the points
Speaker 1: gonna go to the other. So I just wasted my time.
Speaker 1: If I'm running and I know I'm not gonna win,
Speaker 1: why would I waste my time trying to convince these
Speaker 1: people that there's not enough there's not enough people in
Speaker 1: that state that would choose me in relation to those
Speaker 1: that wouldn't. And you already got them, Like if you
Speaker 1: like so obviously using this one, if you Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: like the Republication here is, you already got them. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like what, oh, I'll do a
Speaker 1: rally here just because I can feel good, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But like you're way in California. I
Speaker 1: mean you might be able to pluck off some people,
Speaker 1: but like you wasting your money here. No, you need
Speaker 1: to right now, you need to focus on Arizona. You
Speaker 1: need to focus on, you know, Wisconsin, fam like you
Speaker 1: got a chance there if you him, so, why would
Speaker 1: I even try? So? What it does is that incentivizes
Speaker 1: the candidate to just drill down into their partisans because
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna win that state anyway. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: get none of those points. So why should I try
Speaker 1: to get a piece of a pie that if I lose,
Speaker 1: I don't even get to keep the peace. That don't
Speaker 1: make no sense, do it. You're teaching me to just
Speaker 1: govern the people that will vote for me, that's what
Speaker 1: you're teaching them. Why would you? Are you following what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say here? Our system as it stands today,
Speaker 1: which was made to placate the slave States, is in
Speaker 1: forcing the type of partisanship that we all hate. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't have a solution. One of the solutions is
Speaker 1: dividing the electoral college based on counties rather than full states.
Speaker 1: That way more it's a little bit closer to a
Speaker 1: direct democracy. Because now, since this isn't the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: women can vote, black and brown people can vote, So
Speaker 1: we're talking about a whole different set of people that
Speaker 1: can possibly vote and you know what we all went.
Speaker 1: We can read. People can read. Now there's such thing
Speaker 1: as the internet. It ain't like the seventeen hundreds where
Speaker 1: you know, you had to vote in public and out loud.
Speaker 1: Foods will run into your house, drag you out the house,
Speaker 1: drag you to the polls and be like, I'm a
Speaker 1: beach your ass unless you vote for this person, that's
Speaker 1: like a don't of you notice that's how our elections
Speaker 1: used to be, like just rough like gangs in New
Speaker 1: York styles, like like they it was violent, homie. Now
Speaker 1: it's all private and your business wasn't like that. So
Speaker 1: we can just like our constitution, just like our democracy,
Speaker 1: like we feel like we nailed it into seventeen hundreds
Speaker 1: and it ain't you need no upgrades, Like we all
Speaker 1: here out here on an os one iPhone which still
Speaker 1: got the button on it, just swearing we invented something,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, this is what it is. Does that mean
Speaker 1: that your vote don't count? And oh that sucks. Don't
Speaker 1: do that. You're in the ocean. You gotta swim. But
Speaker 1: this is what the electoral college is. It is a
Speaker 1: basically we create a brand new Congress, and if the
Speaker 1: electors do what we told them to do, then our
Speaker 1: voices is represented. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they vote
Speaker 1: their own conscience. Sometimes president pretends like their votes didn't
Speaker 1: matter and they just pick whole new people to vote.
Speaker 1: And apparently you can't prosecute said president because he's immute.
Speaker 1: But to reiterate again, there has to be a way
Speaker 1: to make sure that what would seem so simple as
Speaker 1: one person, one vote, how do you make sure that
Speaker 1: everybody's voices are heard? And you're right populations like Alaska,
Speaker 1: you know, in relays, like I said, given the example
Speaker 1: to California, it's like you're right, Like there's just more
Speaker 1: of us in LA, you know, But that don't mean
Speaker 1: that your voices, you know, which the rest of California,
Speaker 1: which produces a fifth of the country's produce, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like we should y'all should be heard. You know. We
Speaker 1: arguing over water here in La. It's like we want
Speaker 1: water because you know, we're off the edge of a desert,
Speaker 1: and they like, yeah, well we grow your food. Don't
Speaker 1: you think we should give some water too? I feel
Speaker 1: you you don't of an answer. I just think the
Speaker 1: world we got now, I don't think that's the answer.
Speaker 1: Good politics. All right, now, don't you hit stop on
Speaker 1: this pod. You better listen to these credits. I need
Speaker 1: you to finish this thing so I can get the
Speaker 1: download numbers. Okay, so don't stop it yet, but listen.
Speaker 1: This was recorded in East Lost Boyle Heights by your
Speaker 1: boy Propaganda. Tap in with me at prop hip hop
Speaker 1: dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got
Speaker 1: terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use
Speaker 1: promo code hood get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee.
Speaker 1: This was mixed, edited and mastered by your boy Matt
Speaker 1: Alsowski Killing the Beast Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski
Speaker 1: dot com. I'm a speller for you because I know
Speaker 1: M A T. T O S O W s ki
Speaker 1: dot com Matthowsowski dot com. He got more music and
Speaker 1: stuff like that on there, So gonna check out The
Speaker 1: heat A Politics is a member of cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network.
Speaker 1: Your theme music and scoring is also by the one
Speaker 1: and Noble mattaw Sowski. Still killing the beats Softly, so listen,
Speaker 1: don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living,
Speaker 1: you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you.
Speaker 1: We'll see y'all next week.