The Electoral College decides who becomes president, not the popular vote. No matter who individual voters in places like Louisiana choose, the candidate with the majority wins all the state's electoral votes.
When the Electoral College was created, it included the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted enslaved Black people as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of determining a stateโs total population. This gave extra electoral votes to states with slavery, which made a big difference.
In the Election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson (a slaveholder) beat John Adams (an abolitionist) largely because of the additional electoral votes Southern states gained through the three-fifths clause.
โDonald Trump won the presidency because of two artifacts of slavery: the electoral college and our post-Reconstruction legacy of state voter suppression and disenfranchisement efforts. The electoral college was created in the Constitution to protect the interests of slave owners. And current voter suppression efforts are a direct legacy of white efforts to prevent Blacks from voting after the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited race discrimination in voting.โ โ Perea (2018)
Besides Donald Trump, George Bush, Benjamin Harrison, and Rutherford B. Hayes all became president without winning the majority of the popular vote. This system is anti-democratic and continues to empower white Southerners at the expense of Black Southerners.
In 4 years I have lost:
- my right to an abortion
- my ability to obtain financial aid to pay for a degree
- my right to clean air and water
- my right to safe food free of forever chemicals
- my right to be represented in Congress as a taxpaying citizen through the VRA
I hate this country.
Todayโs Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities - so long as they do it under the guise of โpartisanshipโ rather than explicit โracial bias.โ And it serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.
The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome. But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers - notย just in the upcoming midterms or in high profile races, but in every election and every level.
I wish people wake up and fully listen to this masterpiece of an album.
One of her greatest works that was never really promoted cuz of the label bullshit.