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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2022
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I've heard your so-called "best" arguments to keep the Electoral College for four years, and all of them are weak and pathetic. Sorry, the Electoral College still sucks. Get rid of it or reform it.
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#electoralcollege #voting #votingrights
As it turns out, and I can’t stress this enough, Electoral College defenders DO like democracy. They think it’s great. They like ordinary people like you and me having power and having a voice. THEY want to be heard. I’ve heard your arguments to keep the Electoral College for four years now. But every single one of your arguments are so weak and predictable that they’re kind of boring at this point. It’s not that I don’t understand how presidential elections were supposed to go. It's that how they were supposed to go sucks and needs to change. Again, no, this doesn’t mean I want a DIRECT democracy. I want a true REPRESENTATIVE democracy.
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Face the facts, Anti-Federalists. We're all Federalists now.
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Sad but true
Why does it suck? because you dems can't seem to get around it? .. it's fair as hell and it gives the smaller guys a fair treatment/ representation.
@@A_Legal_Immigrant_1776 average angry trumpie:
"REEEEEEEEE, ThIs Is PuRe LiEs AnD lEfTiSt PrOpAgAnDa!!1!11!1!1!1!1!1!1!1!"
You have no proof, just your average temper tantrum
No, we're not all big government. 1984 jerk circle here?
@@Snowboi1963 Oh shush Biden supporter. Don't even pretend he is a better alternative to Trump. He's ass and you know it. Quit protecting your retarded party.
The irony is that 68% of people liking the video would mean 100% liked the video under the electoral college
Like voting GOP in Massachusetts
No. It would mean that if 24% of people disliked the video from the correct geographical location then it would count as 100% dislikes. That’s why there is a problem lol
Well no, because if it was an electoral college system that 68% could have anywhere between probably 40-100% of the vote not an automatic victory
@@CtrlAltFrog That's not how the electoral college works. Even if you somehow split the Likes/Dislikes into two "states" and put every single Dislike plus only as many Likes as wouldn't swing the state, you would still end up with ~63% Dislike EVs, not 100%.
@@RickJaeger I think he's comparing this video to one state. If 68% of the people in one state vote one way, they are counted as 100% of the vote
I'm no statistician, but there seems to be a strong link between "supporting the electoral college" and "needing it because your candidates would never win otherwise."
That's what I say, I've also noticed there's also a strong link between "supporting being able to get penicillin" and "needing penicillin because your body will die otherwise." Like HMMMM 🤔🤔🤔 kinda sus, right fellas
Mr. Beat also mentioned this in his original video.
Exactly
Mos def
Get rid of the electoral college and the Republican party will just have have to reform in order to be competitive in elections again. More fair elections plus a reformed conservative party seems like a win win to me.
I bet the, "Don't be mad because you didn't get the results you wanted" crowd are real quiet right now lmao
trump was close to winning
the electoral college helps people from completely different areas have their votes count
america is as big as europe
the electoral college is meant to have more votes than it currently does, but for some reason people decided the house didn't need more members anymore
Trump losing actually just strengthens my position that the electoral college works just fine and people only cry about it because they can't handle losing.
@@skoop651winning when? He list the popular vote by 3 million in 2016 and by 7 million in 2020. Neither one is close.
@@skoop651 people from different areas would have their vote count more without the college. Everyone's vote would be equal. With the college, people from some areas have a less valuable vote.
Republicans in California would matter more, as would Democrats in Alabama.
I love the irony that THEY don't fully understand what a republic is. If we got rid of the electoral college we would still live in a republic. We just have one degree removed so we are more directly voting for the representative in the republic. It's not that hard to understand.
This 'America is a republic not a democracy' is intentional conservative propaganda. They don't want people to associate democracy = democrats.
the electoral college helps people from completely different areas have their votes count
america is as big as europe
the electoral college is meant to have more votes than it currently does, but for some reason people decided the house didn't need more members anymore
@@skoop651 I’d be fine with changing the size of the electoral college/house. I wasn’t really saying we should get rid of the EC. I think it’d be much easier to try to fix it. I just meant that if we did it wouldn’t change our status as a republic.
Except they do... If you get rid of the EC then it's literally a direct democracy, why would it ever be a good idea for a handful of cities to be able to determine the government of the ENTIRE country and not the individual states who already have their own individual laws and systems? Why should states which feed and supply the rest of the country but don't have as many behemoth cities get zero say in our government? There are no good educated arguments for removing the electoral college.
Continuing on with the dictionary definition of "Republic", From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:" A government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government". No Republican believes this but then Republicans tend to be the people who are not educated.
I always find it funny when they say to leave the country, like they never complained about the countrys problems.
THIS IS MURRICA. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, THEN LEAVE!
Then you end up researching how convoluted the immigration process out of the U.S. is, and the fact that you still have to pay income tax unless you renounce your citizenship-- something that costs in excess of 10,000 dollars, mind you.
Immigrating has never been and will not be a viable option for those in the lower and middle class for quite a long time-- at least, if you intend on going anywhere actually desirable that has cultural and lingual similarities with the U.S.
It's a complete nonsense argument, and those that make it clearly don't understand the nuances and intricacies of the immigration process
yet they're the same complaining in the same fashion about anything the democrats do.
I liked the guy who said he would never leave the country because he didn't want to be a victim of American foreign policy. 😁
@@knewledge8626 This reply is gold😂 The “world police” trying to convince everyone within and outside the country that their system of governance is superior.
That’s because you dumb leftists don’t realize that you say you’ll leave because America is a “racist country” and “capitalism is evil”, but still continue to live in said “racist country” while reaping the benefits of “evil capitalism.” 🙄
It continues to baffle me how many people defend the Electoral College until you realize it's mostly people who depend on winning without getting the plurality opinion to ever get into office.
Bingo. They can't win with policy, so they take a disproportionate voting power...
The problem with going by plurality is that eventually you’ll get someone with only 15 percent winning because the electorate divided among a dozen candidates
The Electoral College’s solution to potential plurality problems is absolutely bizarre though, by having the decision go to the House of Representatives
Edit: People seem to think I don’t know what run-offs are or that this comment was somehow a defense of the Electoral College. Now, if you scroll down about two replies, you’d see I agree that run-offs are the optimal solution. And if you think this was me defending the EC, invest in critical reading skills.
Either way, my point is that any voting system that allows for someone to win theoretically with 15 percent of the vote is a flawed system. You’d be surprised how often this happens outside of our beloved two-party environment-basically every award in sports allows this, not to mention gubernatorial primaries and even that most inviolable democratic process: internet polls.
Also, it is truly bizarre how the House can select the president with no regard to who was even running.
@@warlordofbritannia
That is why you have run off elections....
The two candidates who get the highest percentage of votes face off against one another in a run off election, and whoever gets 50% of the vote in that election, wins
So someone only getting 15% of the vote and winning is impossible
@@warlordofbritannia And there are solutions to that too
Runoff, Alternative Vote, Coalitions, etc
Besides, most multi-party systems usually have one party that gets more than half of the vote, or at least more than 40%
@@person3070
Run-offs are good. That’s definitely the primary solution to a straight plurality system
Debates aside, thank you for explaining this process to an Australian. The electoral college was an alien concept until you explained it so clearly. We get a lot of news coverage of US elections, but it's never made any sense to me!
hi! this isnt an advertisement, but have you seen the honest government ads from juice media? they’re really good and provided me a ton of insight on the australian government lol. if you havent seen them you should (as your australian)
You, Mr Beat; are one of those people that I frequently disagree with on political issues, but respect your opinion because you are informed and make good arguments. Keep doing what you do sir.
Thanks, Richard!
@@iammrbeat .
Honestly, he's one of the most apolitical Americans I ever listened to
@@diobrando1882 apolitical = aligns with your politics?
@@fatninjacatmatt bruh
I think my most hated response to criticism of the place you live in is: "If you don't like ____, leave!" There are so many problems with that line of thinking, but it always seems to come up, like clockwork.
Rather a tyrannical response isn't it?
Our very constitution was set up so, if you don't like it, amend it!
It really does. And then when people actually *do* leave, they pivot to "well they never gave us a fair chance"
Depends on what the issue is.
People who abandon socialist countries with tyranny, and come to the US spreading the exact same ideas should be told to leave. Why did you leave tyranny if it's so great?
@@thegoldenarm6422 lol what. socialism isn’t inherently tyrannical- if anything it’s the opposite. if someone left tyranny but still supports socialist ideas, they are not supporting tyranny in their new country
The number of people in America who act fearful of a hypothetical “tyranny of the majority” while having no problem imposing an ACTUAL tyranny of the minority is astounding. If it was a Venn diagram, it would be a circle.
They are fully aware of their hypocrisy. They just don't care because they don't value democracy.
@@Asemodeous They want an auto.cracy with a dem.agogue like Tr.ump in the oval office.
MAGAtards are a walking contradiction. We're the "silent majority" but also please do not abolish the electoral college because our side of the political do not have the numbers to ever win the popular vote because we're the minority!
Then everything is a tyranny if you oppose it. What to do?
@@pm5206 Recognize that the equitable will of the majority is not tyranny, while the supremacist will of the minority is. Then be a decent human and support democracy.
It’s weird that people would defend their vote not being treated equally as everyone else’s, which is essentially what the electoral college facilitates.
Well, that and the Senate. More populated states should have more Senators.
I'm not an American. But when I learned about the Electoral College, my first thought was like, "This is the stupidest thing ever". Glad to know it wasn't just me.
The obvious minority power play.
Good job at confirming you have common sense!
It was great working with you again, Mr. Beat! In all sincerity, you do a great job addressing your personal views while confronting critiques in a calm and logical manner (especially the straw-man fallacy). Best of all, though, we love that you put a warning up at the very start to acknowledge your own personal biases and opinions. More channels need to do this!
I'm trying to use the link in his description to sign up but it's not working. Same when I type it in myself to my browser. Is it new and so not working?
It was great working with you again! You are by far one of my favorite sponsors. Thanks for the kind words. :)
An appeal to authority because folks admire the ideas of the founding fathers? That is quite the stretch to a logical fallacy argument. Try again and now you have all these dim witted fools all buying into that takeaway hook, line and sinker.
@@ericrosenberg9059 it is perfectly valid to admire the ideas of the founding fathers. Claiming something is valid BECAUSE it was an idea of the founding fathers is an appeal to authority.
@@katseanesandrew253 no one makes that argument. That is the opposition framing their opponents argument.
The video you cited as "one of the better responses" was so condescending and full of misplaced confidence, really says a lot that that's their strongest argument
Id argue its far from the strongest argument but that man gets picked up so much to be argued against im not surprised XD and a big issue with Electoral College Arguments is the issue is so bloody complex differing people are on different sides of the fence for entirely different reasons.
Yeah, I've seen a few videos from 'Don't Walk..." he's a condescending douche that isn't half as smart or well informed as he thinks he is and is oh so overly opinionated about it. He miss quotes things and takes things out of context right and left and his arguments, generally, are full of fallacies. Watching his videos is like listening to someone sing painfully off key, but thinks they're nailing it.
"Condescending and full of misplaced confidence" describes most American conservatives.
That's because there is no legitimate argument to defend the electoral college.
@@jgroth3906 honestly it’s the whole political system that’s like that. People just don’t take a second to look at their opinion from another perspective and it’s infuriating.
Long time electoral college supporter, constitutionalist, and new listener.
I think you bring up some good points, and I like the idea of ranked voting. Something like that could erode away at the 2 party system I think many are getting tired of.
The electoral college was fucking brilliant at the time, because presidential candidates would have ignored small states, and never gone their to campaign. This would have left voter with no knowledge about what was going on. Now, information travels. You’re average rural voter knows exactly what is going on in DC. I’ll give you Illinois for example. Outside of Chicago, Illinois is very conservative. The reason Illinois is a blue state is because those conservatives are overwhelmed by the interests of Chicago. This leaves those rural voters in southern Illinois, with no real say in presidential elections, because there votes are always going to be overwhelmed by the votes in Chicago. I want those rural voters to have a say. I want the minority political party in every state to have a say. That is why the electoral college at the very least needs to be altered, if not completely gotten rid of.
@@bencarter8423 at the time
The 2 party system is horrible
@@bencarter8423How does an electoral college defend the voice of the minority on the state level? It does the exact opposite by completely eliminating the vote of the 49%
@@bencarter8423i like this. I don't know if I like the idea many people have about abolishing it, because it has a purpose, but I don't think there's any question that it's absolutely flawed. I think, by the sounds of everything, that the issue is not the idea that the electoral college is a bad thing, but that OUR electoral college has flaws. Either this is misunderstood by Mr Beats and others, or they're miscommunicating this. Not sure which.
It gives land a vote. So the wealthy have more of a vote.
"According to the mob of electoral-college defenders, they are the best mob!" is a really good quote
Help me with something ...
We know Dems will turn everything upside down for power .
But if they want....power.
If they want to get elected, why cant they offer solutions?
Why can't they try to help us solve are problems?
Why do they sneers at our unifying symbols ( the Flag, etc), out customs and our faith?
Why do they just offer techniques and tactics but nothing to help?
The shitty policies they do offer are mostly found to be unconstitutional .
Translation:Why should we make it easy for you to have power when that's all you want?
Fun fact: Only three presidents lost the popular vote twice
1. John Quincy Adams
2. Benjamin Harrison
3. Donald Trump
That’s three too many
You forgot to add 3.
I forgot about Benjamin Harrison. We always forget about poor Ben.
At least Quincy Adams was based af
80 million dead voters for Biden?
I remember back in high school we had an assignment where we had to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the electoral college. I wrote about one or two sentences explaining the benefits, and about four or five paragraphs explaining the drawbacks.
Thankfully only one sentence is needed to defend the electoral college: the union would not survive without it.
@@Prolute
That’s a Right-wing propaganda talking point, not a fact…
@@coyotelong4349 Go ahead and get rid of it then and find out.
@@Prolute The Constitution wouldn't have been ratified without the EC. But the union surviving? Well, it didn't survive... the EC didn't save it. A little thing called the Civil War happened.
The Union is way more integrated economically and.socially these days. We'd be fine without the EC. Hell, we'd probably be better off. We'd definitely be better off with the voting system changes he mentioned at the end of the video.
@@travcollier The civil war is not a point in your favor, it's a point in mine. It shows how precarious the union really is. We wouldn't be better off without the EC because that would mean significant weakening the constitution. Instead, we should just give the federal government less power so that federal elections are less consequential.
the problem with people defending the electoral college by saying it protects the minority from the oppression of the majority is that the electoral college only protects the specific minorities it is aggregated for, people who live in small states, while suppressing any minority it isn't aggregated for since minorities of a winner takes all state are rounded out of being represented entirely.
And instead of being aggregated alongside any minority you are purposefully trying to protect it is aggregated along arbitrarily set geographical lines by the happenstance of history which use to be right leaning racist nationalists who oppose federal government influence so they can run a slave empire, but now we're so connected it only aggregates alongside a vague trend of that.
If you took all African Americans and made them a state that state would have the same impact on American politics as California or Texas, but instead they are a minority in every state they are found in.
If you want to give minorities more say in at least making sure that the candidate that they like the least doesn't take power and do a holocaust or something, the best way to do so is with some version of ranked choice voting that prioritizes not making common least favorite candidates win. The second best way is to have a constitution that says the law must be applied indiscriminately
If pure winner take all majority democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on where to go for dinner, the electoral college is 50 groups of 2 wolves and a sheep voting on dinner, and ranked choice or star voting without the electoral college is 2 wolves and a sheep giving 5 dinner options each and taking turns throwing away their least favorite one until they agree on a place with a good menu, that the wolves like more yes, but at least the sheep can make sure that the wolves are eating pig or something
There is a disturbing trend of people in the US being conditioned to support the status quo and being unable to make a coherent argument when asked and having to resort to either personal attacks or tropes. The same happens here in the UK with the FPTP voting system whenever you ask someone here about it.
View it from their pov. No civil war in more than 150 years and the US is a superpower. So they associate the present US with its institutions. By contrast Europe in the XX century had two massive wars. If the US suffered say a devastating war with no clear gains then maybe institutions might get questioned.
FPTP is arguably as bad as the system in the USA. Quebec's leading party got 40.98% of the popular vote yet got 72% of the seats. And on the federal level Justin Trudeau got elected twice as a minority government when the conservative party has more total vote.
Honestly the more I learn about the UK's system of government, the more I think it's bizarre that you guys have to wait so long to vote on new representation or not if the current majority decides, but like why would they call a snap election?
its straight up fascism taking over our country
@@jspihlman To flex on the opponents to HMG that it is still the people's voice. Not realizing that there is a 50/50 chance the population would flip the Government the bird and change.
As a senior in high school i wrote a paper against the electoral college. My teacher was livid and gave me an F, bringing my grade to a C. It was the only grade that was not an A.
Suuuure. You probably just made a bad argument
So basically your “freedom” to challenge something ABOUT freedom was met with a borderline Authoritarian response. The irony 🙄 I wanna to kick that teacher in the _____
What a shitty teacher.
Did you complain to the school administration? teachers should not let bias get in the way of grading.
Lmao well yeah, abolishing the EC is one step to totalitarianism, based teacher did the right thing
5:00 "democracy is tyrrany by majority" well than electoral college in no exeption, because there is tyrrany in each state where is winner takes all.
Exactly
These discussions always remind me of a time about 20 years ago. I was visiting my the girlfriend, now wife, in her home country in Central America. The government was looking into changing this they were organized and were discussing a variety of options.
A government spokesperson was presenting some of the ideas to a group of business people, including my girlfriend, and she invited me to attend. During the discussion one gentleman spoke up and asked why they just didn’t do it like we do it in the US. I suggested to my girlfriend that she point out that the US wouldn’t do it like the US if we had to start over again.
Many of our quirks, like the Electoral College, are beloved by many because we see it as a symbol of who we are as a country. The real question should be “does it make sense in the modern world?” There are many pros and cons to these legacy aspects of our Republic. I think that discussions like these are healthy so that we can say we have this quirks for more than mere “tradition”.
A reason for having/keeping the electoral college is that it is still the case that without it small states would still be pretty ignored and increasingly grow alienated and disaffected from national politicians/politics.
@@suarezguythey’re already ignored. Candidates spend more of their time trying to flip crucial swing states; small states are either reliably Republican or don’t matter enough to sway an election. Battleground states, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan on the other hand, can play a decisive role in an election. The electoral college only encourages candidates to pay attention to states that are evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, and ignores states that reliably vote one way or another.
@@imawaffle148 I think that focus on swing states, though a bias, is a pretty good focus/bias to have-which states are swing states can and does change over time (a lot more and faster than other state factors like their populations).
I love the argument of "big pop votes need to be less than small pop votes" because apperently if you live close to more people your vote should count less
"If you live close to more people your vote should count less" Yes. 100%. Otherwise rural states shouldbe allowed to leave the union but the Amerikkkan empire would never allow that now would they. Fuck America! God Bless Wyoming. If you are some coastal urbanite fuck you. If you are a rural brother, respect. And that goes the world over. Us rural people need to stick together from Namibia to Wyoming to Acre state to Chaco, Paraguay to Finnmark Norway.
I must say that it bothers me that 2,400 sheep in Wyoming have the same voice as I do. Baah.
I mean it makes sense. There are states predominantly made up of rural people that have no chance against larger states. It's why the senate exists. The problem is that it makes no sense why both the senate seats and representative seats are voted upon in the same election. They should really be separate elections, with the representative one deciding who's the president, and the senate having a bit less power.
People are terrible as a general rule, so if there are more of them, it must be a worse place.
@@DaDARKPass Okay. How exactly does that makes sense? Rural people would have no chance against large metropolitan populations? Why should they. There are less of them. Why should they have more voting power. Living in a rural area is not a meritable status that justifies this system. The votes of people who live in rural areas would still count if it was based on popular vote. So we don't do it because the minority would lose? That is extremely flimsy justification.
People who defend the electoral college are the ones who feel they benefit from it. The idea that the founding fathers never intended for us to re-evaluate and improve our systems of government and elections is one of the most ridiculous notions ever.
It's not hard to Understand if you just picture the US as individual states instead of just one America..
The whole point of it is to keep every state glued to the Country.. That's why states are allowed to do things so differently..
You don't do that by telling the smaller ones to shove it, majority of people dont like you anyway..
One state could have a Volcano brewing but nobody listens to them so they explode or leave..
@@myman8336 I think we need a better system, though. It doesn't sit right with a lot of people that the president who receives 3 million less votes can still win the election.
I think the only way the electoral college works is if all 50 states are more or less the same in population.
Perhaps what needs to happen is for California to separate into several states and certain states need to merge (the Dakotas and Carolinas for example). Small states should not have the ability to hold the nation hostage over important legislation and the presidency.
@@valdavis7461 Then you might as well just get rid of the state system and merge them all into one giant state
The constitution was never meant to question the founding fathers, and that's exactly why they failed to put an amending formula in the constitution.
Oh! Wait....
@@valdavis7461 What about 1992? Clinton only had 43 percent of the votes.
One time in school, we were supposed to come up with "political parties" or whatever. Mine's "platform" mentioned getting rid of the electoral college.
The teacher called me a socialist... for supporting democracy. That definitely says something about that teacher, but I think it probably says something about the electoral college, and maybe even about capitalism/hyper-capitalism in general.
Teacher should be fired for that, you can discuss political issues in school but the teacher shouldn’t give their own opinion or chastise a student’s opinion.
Also that doesn’t make sense lol, how does supporting changing the way we elect a president mean you also support complete public ownership of the factors of production? Talk about a straw man fallacy
Lmao you should report that teacher, they probably are Republican anyway.
“THE UNITED STATES IS A REPUBLIC” okay well there are plenty of other countries that are republics that don’t have an electoral college.
Mr beat is one of the people I watch because I DON'T always agree with him. It's nice to challenge your own ideas and try to be as open minded as possible
Thank you for trying to be open minded!
Agreed, people have the right to be wrong and even if you disagree with someone it is important to understand where they come from.
@@iammrbeat What would you say to someone who doesn't believe that the majority should call the shots?
@@annonymous6827 I'd ask who do you believe should call the shots?
@@jessicaporter7517 irrelevant to the question, the arguments he made only work for people who already like democracy, which I do but a lot of people dont
Fantastic video! So glad you mentioned the "repubs in blue states and dems in red states would be heard without the electoral college" point. I've telling people that for years haha
Except they wouldn't. I live in Montana. Our largest city is about 120,000 people. And I don't even live there. Our population is about 1.2 million. So, compared to just about every state surrounding us, why would any candidate for president campaign here, when either Dakota, Idaho, or Washington, Oregon, or I don't know, California is available and full of potential voters? Montana gets disregarded because few people live here. We're essentially left out for ourselves when with the Electoral College, there's some incentive (even if just a bit) to appeal to the potential voters.
@Jack Jones can you explain to me why you are in favor of allowing a candidate to win if they don’t win the majority of Americans votes?
Please don’t tell me it’s because you acknowledge GOP wouldn’t win without the EC?
@Jack Jones There are republicans in cities too.
@Jack Jones Then Republicans should campaign for values the people actually want. Democrats usually win the popular vote because their ideals are in line with the people of this country. The popular vote and electoral vote are supposed to reflect one another.
@Jack Jones I’d rather have them be disadvantaged than have them not be equal. Everyone should have a voice.
People like Marjorie "Red States and Blue States!" Taylor Greene want you to think each state is a monolith even though each state is actually very purple
Not really. Go look at the electoral map. Most counties are red. The only blue counties where they get all their votes are the liberal cities and also women for that matter. Hell if you removed women alone all the sudden the dems stop winning just from that alone.
In a presidential election with RCV or STAR voting and 95% turnout, all the swing states would flip Democratic overnight.
Love your videos Mr Beat! The Electoral College is horrible. One vote should be equal to every other vote! Anything else is just crazy talk!
I disagree. Just imagine a nation-wide recount scenario...
@@jrousselle7828 A compromise could be each state gets divided into small districts (much smaller than our current House districts and actually proportional to each state's population) and the people elect one elector by ranked choice voting. That elector then votes for president. This way recounts may need to be done in some individual districts, but nationwide or even statewide would not be necessary, and you'd get an outcome that lines up with what the people want.
@@jrousselle7828Equal votes come first
@@jrousselle7828 I’m not sure if you watched the video, but votes are counted on a precinct level(so small sections of a single town). If you abolish the electoral college votes would still be counted on a precinct level like they are now. Like they count the popular vote in order to assign the electoral victors. We’re just removing a needless step.
Agreed Mr Beat. The argument that the broad term 'democracy' is analogous to the term 'direct democracy' strikes me as being both desperate and fundamentally dishonest.
Mr. Beat shouldn't have to apologize because 'Republic, not a Democracy' is SO dishonest.
That's because the "republic vs democracy" debate is fundamentally just two sides arguing over the definitions of words.
@@pdawg193 not only that but the whole argument depends on the idea that the terms are mutually exclusive when they are most definitely not. You can (and we do) have a democratic republic.
90% of arguments like this especially about political ideologies (democracy vs republic, communism vs socialism, fascism vs authoritarianism etc) are essentially just false dichotomies.
@@pdawg193 Well duh. It is still a legitimate debate though because one side says that the President should be directly elected like Congress is and the other side supports preserving a system that gives small states at least some say in who becomes President even though the majority still has a large advantage.
@@CStone-xn4oy The is the crux of the whole problem is thinking in the concept of states vs people/individuals. Every individual vote counts whether the EC exists or not. The EC does give regional power to certain blocks like the Deep South or North East. You are putting primacy of geography over individuals. The reason it has become an issue is because in the last 30 years one party would have only won the office once without the EC. How do you feel about folks in D.C. that have no voice in the Senate? Or Puerto Rico who have no representation at all? How do you feel about states where their state legislative bodies are the minority parties in their states in popular vote, but used a wave election in 1994 to continuously change laws and toy with maps to maintain power in those states? The 2 states I am describing are Michigan and Pennsylvania where there are slim, but definate blue leans, but the state legislatures have been red since 1994 and keep playing games to maintain power and are even willing to restructure EC to take the power away from voters and set it into the legislatures hands again like it is 1809. BTW Michigan has always had popular vote for the EC as the state came along in the 1820's long after the notion of legislatures electing the POTUS were considered archaic and out of style. EC honestly should have been done away with after the Civil War as it has had no purpose other then as an oddity or as a specific political tool.
I love when people complain about “rule by the majority” as if the current system, that is essentially “rule by the minority” is soooo much better
Can you explain how the “minority” is ruling America right now?
Ask them, what if instead we make it based on ethnicity? Because the ethnic majority in the US had a way worse record of treating ethnic minorities badly than small states...
All rule is by a minority. That's what "rule" is.
If choosing a politician by popular vote is mob rule, choosing is a politician by electoral college is just rule by a sometimes slightly smaller mob (+538 random people who could toss out the entire results if they wanted to, so in that case a really really small mob)
They're not random, though.
Way late to the party here.. just discovered the channel. However, my favorite viewer comment from the appeal to authority fallacy section is "He thinks he's smarter than the founding fathers." No, he doesn't, but it is 100% plausible that he, or any currently living person for that matter, *could* be smarter or at least better educated than the founders. I get tired of the founders being talked about as if they had magical powers. Sure, a few were truly great thinkers (for their time.) But an awful lot of great thinking has been done since then. (I mean, Doctors used to think leeching was a good idea, but eventually thought better of it.) I am strongly in favor of ranked choice voting, in no small part because it might help break us out of the two-party model that is responsible for so much gridlock at the federal level. I would like to see ranked choice implemented at all levels of government.
FYI our founding fathers said that there should be no party system. The people in charge changed the laws and made it that way, not our founding fathers. They actually prevented that and some hacks ratified the constitution. Just like how lawyers were never supposed to be allowed to be politicians. Ratified. Lobbying was illegal because it's literal bribery. Ratified. Etc.
Bless you for engaging with these people. It is incredibly draining.
It is also quite draining to listen to his condescending tone in this video.
@@coolpilot5694Well that’s how they treat him lol
I really cannot get over the fact of how thoroughly I was able to be persuaded from a strong-held belief, just from a single video. Holy shit. You got backlash and really decided to shut it all down with straight facts. I commend you sir.
Mr. Beat speaks the truth. Electoral college sucks and everyone knows it deep down.
He knows his stuff 😉
Then people who actually do threaten to get up and leave and move to Canada get made fun of
🤣😂 you're clearly very uninformed LOL if this nonsense convinced you. The electoral college is the best system. Period.
The people who hate it like Mr beat are just democrat propagandists who want all of the US to be shitholes like San Francisco and Chicago by letting high population density cities that are almost always democrat to steam roll the country.
@@YoFool.1506 Because it's just smoke they're blowing.
Mr. Beat -- We don't agree on everything politically or economically -- but I deeply respect your commitment to democracy, civil discourse, and your willingness to educate folks. Can't thank you enough.
...RANKED CHOICE VOTING kills Jerrymandering and 100 other problems. No wonder the
best Problem-adressing Social-Commentary-Channel on YT, Some-More-News, and Second-Thought, both advocate for it. The Electoral College and much more has to be fixed and the Best way is to know WHAT is broken.
Mr. Beat is a left-wing hack masquerading as a moderate.
Dude's pretty cool and genuine.
Pandering will get you nowhere
He still loves joe biden though. He hates trump. He's one of those no trumpers that refuses to talk about trump and just defends a lot of his parties propaganda talking points.
I'm only 4min in but yr vid came up as I did a specific search on this topic so thanks 👍🏽 I have always thought it should be removed before I could even vote. Now after being able to for 38 years my thoughts on that have gotten stronger with every election, people in this country need to want and allow them selves to critically think more about everything in general, thanks for not giving up 🤘🏽💖
I like hearing different views on the subject keep up the good work Mr.Beat
Honestly I was apprehensive about changing the system of the Electoral College but you have thoroughly convinced at least one random person on the internet to change sides. On this one.
I know u probably won't see this, but I had for a long time been a fan of an electoral college (albeit with some need for reform), but that older video, quite honestly, I went in skeptical and came out reconsidering its importance. So regardless of the dislikes, u actually changed my mind. You, sir, are the first. I have listened to arguments, but yours were the most persuasive. The only thing I had a problem with was the puppet, but that's just your own personal creative choice. I think more would be persuaded without it, because the puppet did indeed voice my own thoughts at the time. I did have the patience with it, but I can see where others wouldn't.
As a Brazilian, I find so funny how you figure out how to go to the Moon but you can't freaking vote properly.
the scary thing about electoral votes by district, like in maine and Nebraska, is that it makes it easier to gerrymander your way to the oval office. overall though, great video!
Yep, we'd have to simultaneously get rid of gerrymandering
@@iammrbeat Instead of by district, why not electoral votes per county, since a county's borders can't be shifted every ten years depending on who's in power? Heck, we could apply that to state elections as well, or even county elections with EV's by township.
@@seannolan9857 yes, but some counties have like 5 people in them
@@SignificantNumberOfBeavers Obviously larger counties would be worth more EV's than small ones. And only two counties have under 100 people, one in Texas and a former leper colony in Hawaii.
@@iammrbeat The problem is there's no objective standard of what a fair non-gerrymandered map looks like - it's fundamentally a political question. Witness all the maps that get escalated to federal courts, and get thrown out for creating specific majority coalitions or thrown out for _not_ creating them in other circumstances. There's no algorithm that you could teach to a computer, or to a truly politically-neutral person (if such a thing existed).
I’ve always found it kind of shocking how many people actually like the electoral college. Great video.
Thank you!
I’m sorry that I don’t want the cesspool state of California deciding the election? No not one bit lmao.
I find it shocking how many people continue to vote for the types of governments that ruin states (California, New York), then run to states that have actually not been ruined (Texas economically, Georgia), and continue to vote for the same governments that ruin states.
@@tyler1783 did you know that california has the most republicans of any state not named texas. Why should those 5 million+ citizens have no voice on the national scale.
@@jasonhoffarth They have way more Democrats then Republicans.
One thing i think is always worth remembering about those who defend the electoral college like Crowder does, is that they're not doing it out of principles and a genuine belief in it as an institution, but rather they do it simply because it's advantageous to them politically. None of the people in the right wing space online would have defended the electoral college if 2016 was reversed, with hillary receiving more Electoral votes but trump receiving more popular votes.
Nearly nobody would care about it at all if there hadn't been (recent) times when popular vote and electoral vote didn't match and that both recent times favored one party does make it hard for evaluations to not be pretty partisan. But, not exactly about electoral college but similar, conservatives do tend to generally like the having two Senators per state, more than liberals (a lot more would be fine with or prefer just having the one House of Representatives), even though that doesn't particularly help them and the Senate tends to frustrate both parties.
A non-partisan argument for the electoral college is that it's good, better than candidates focus more on swing states, than some other kind of category of states/areas, as which states are swing states can and does change over time.
As someone who used to be very for the electoral college I’m happy that I found a video that not only made a good argument beyond being butt-hurt about past elections but also wasn’t condescending to anyone who disagreed. I love your style of video and wish I had more history teachers like you in high school
You might want to check out Vince Dao. He debunked this video
@@garystahler9112 are you really suggesting a doofus like that lmao
@It did not cut deep enough Yeah, I suggest you check out one of the debates as well he did with Vice.
@@garystahler9112 he debunked nothing and neither can you. the ec is absurd
@@godemperorofmankind3.091 Lol. He literally did.
Our government is falling apart because of the extreme political divide and polarization across the entire nation. I hope that one day, all Americans, Democrats or Republicans, unite and stand together as a nation
I couldn't agree more
Why though? If Democrats and Rupublicans wanted to or even could get along, they would! Vote for progressives like Sanders and Howie Hawkins!
@Safwaan that's true, but competition and fighting for power should be regular rivalry and not descend into downright hatred were rivals are perceived as deadly enemies.
Nah our government is falling apart because it's been invaded by a corrupt, theo-fascistic right wing who are determined to turn the USA into a full-tilt handmaid's tale prison state.
This "both sides" bullshit needs to stop. Yes, democrats are still fundamentally conservative and corporate. No, I don't like their party establishment very much either.
But only one side wants to imprison or kill women for having miscarriages. Only one side flies Nazi flags and Confederate battle standards at their rallies. Only one side wants to build a wall on the border with one of our closest friends and allies. Only one side has attempted to kidnap sitting governors, only one side has attempted a violent coup, and only one side swamps the offices of congresswomen with so many death threats they need their own task force to assess which ones are serious.
Fuck "both sides are extreme." There are Nazis and non-Nazis. Republicans who claim not to like the Nazis but still vote for them because of party loyalty are, at best, Nazi sympathizers.
Vote blue no matter who.
Pfffft. Good luck.
i like your way of pointing out the logical fallacies in opposing arguments and sticking to the facts while also being willing to admit fault and concede when a good point is made
Wtf are you talking about? Mr. Beat has never admitted any fault in leftist "logic."
Can't wait for him to do that
Once again the guy who has to resort to making funny voices in an attempt to belittle his opposition because he can't argue on the merit of the debate loses.
Yes, the founders were wise. Wise enough to make the constitution a living changing document.
Thank you.
Honestly, "we have telegraphs now" (14:38) is a pretty good argument for moving on from the electoral college
sorry - but it's not - keep trying....
@@krisbacca7196 Actually, it is.
One of the key reasons why the founding fathers chose to create the electoral college was due to the lack of communication infrastructure that we have today. Back in the 18th century, recent political developments had to be spread via newspaper that was carried by horse, so information could take months to travel to every citizen. As a result, it couldn't be reasonably expected that citizens would have all the information to make an informed choice on who should become president. The electoral college aimed to solve this by having representatives be voted for at the state level to represent the average citizen: they would travel to the capitol which allowed them to be much more up-to-date on current matters, and therefore may change their vote for the presidency if they thought that any new developments may have swayed the vote if citizens back at home had access to this information.
This is no longer an issue today, however, as advents such as the internet have made it so that any new developments in the capitol will be spread to the people in the furthest corners of the country in mere minutes. Henceforth, this is one reason why the electoral college is obsolete, as we can be sure that the average citizen has access to any relevant information that may be needed to choose the next president.
@@krisbacca7196 kinda is lol. Many things have changed...the founding fathers were not in favor of having parties either...they thought it would divide the country...so things have changed and changed quite a bit.
My biggest issue with the Electoral College is with faithless electors.
Yeah it's amazing that faithless electors are still a thing.
@@iammrbeat Agreed.
Shadow Electors are even more of a threat.
My issue with the EC is there are not enough faithless electors.
Could you imagine if Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin had faithless electors in 2016 to enforce 'majority rule'. What a change that would be.
Mr Beat's skills as a presenter have improved a lot since I first started watching him. Keep up the good work, sir!
I agree with you. Good points all around. The electoral college sucks.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the electoral college was created before we even regularly called ourselves "The United States". We used to identify with our state more than our nation. I'd argue it's flipped now.
Good point.
The electoral college was a solution to a very specific problem: every state had different voter requirements. It didn’t make sense to have a national popular vote where states had different voting ages, land requirements, and racial barriers. Although now, via the Constitution, all states have the same voter requirements and can’t abridge voting privileges.
Mr. Beat, for most of my adult life, I was a staunch supporter of the Electoral College. I held by my belief that it was a check on large cities and states from having too much sway in electing our president. Over the last several years, it has become abundantly clear to me how wrong I was. In the last 20 years, two of our last four presidents have been elected without a plurality of the electorate. There's something inherently wrong with that. And for those who say that Bush and Trump carried the majority of counties in the United States, I would simply add "tracts of land do not elect presidents. People do." Thank you for making some very strong points, including the idea of keeping the Electoral College but breaking it up by congressional districts rather than our "winner take all" system we presently have.
Those “Tracts of lands” aren’t completely responsible for picking the president but they are a part of it, remember there are people there
as much as i hated Hillary Clinton she legitmatly won the election in 2016and should have been president and trump only won becase some electors just switched there vote to him.
Fellow Kansan here, i too know what it feels like to not have my voice heard. We desperately need ranked choice voting and also open primaries.
Open primaries: Oh, what a great idea. Let's allow non party members to sabotage a party's primary; force them to run a candidate you think you can defeat. Do you want another Trump? Because that's how you risk getting a Trump.
Yeah...as a fellow Kansan, the recent redistricting was really scary, cause it felt very directly targeted at me and people like me.
The two State Constitutional Amendments being voted on also feel targeted at particular current events in politics, rather than actual issues that our state deals with...so frustrating.
Closed primaries seem so blatantly undemocratic to me. Let me vote in both primaries, for each canidate from either side I like the most, so I can have two decent choices.
@@JohnDoe-ex1qn Counterpoint: Primaries are absurd, and we are the only democracy in the world to have them, and we really ought to abolish them entirely. It is generally useful to let parties have control over who they nominate, and if voters don't like who a party chooses as their candidate they don't have to vote for that party. The issue with opening up primaries too much is it invites any demagogue to enter a race and completely redefine the image of a party. This is exactly what happened with Trump. the majority of third parties in the US nominate by convention instead of primaries, out of fear that primaries would allow people to hijack and effectively take control of small parties through running in the primary, which has happened before.
Yes, but our political system has become so dependent on the two parties that the people have to end up choosing the lesser of two evils nearly every election, which leads to no change. Which is exactly what the oligarchy wants.
Keep up the awesome work... and thank you for providing!!
The ranked voting system seems perfect.
All I gotta say is, THANK YOU MR.BEAT!! I’ve been looking for something like ground for the longest time and it’s already working it’s magic. You’re the best, keep doing what you’re doing
The Electoral College s-cks!
RANKED CHOICE VOTING kills Jerrymandering and 100 other problems. No wonder the
best Problem-adressing Social-Commentary-Channel on YT, Some-More-News, and Second-Thought, both advocate for it. The Electoral College and much more has to be fixed and the Best way is to know WHAT is broken.
Funny your Electoral College video is actually my favorite video on the channel, had no clue it had the most dislikes. If it were up to me to come up with a compromise, I’d keep the electoral college but switch to ranked choice voting. At the very least, you’ll break the two party system that way. And quite frankly I think the two party system is a big reason this conversation among others is so polarizing
When I first learned about the voting system in grade school I thought it was silly. Ranked choice should have been implemented ages ago. The current system incentives voting against candidates you don't want, instead of the candidates you belive are most representative of your views.
Theres only 2 ways i would support the electoral college:
1. It's illegal or just impossible to be a faithless elector.
2. Under any circumstance in which the winner of the popular vote and electoral vote are different, the person who won the popular vote becomes president.
Also, Fun Fact: Iceland doesn't have an electoral college or term limits, and they seem to be doing fine.
For the love of god don't get rid of term limits.
What's funny to me is that this was an issue people in both parties used to agree on. Even in 2004 with the 2000 election still fresh in people's minds a poll found 50% of Republicans supported abolishing the electoral college. And you can go back and check quotes from Republican politicians in 2012-2014 (including Gingrich and Trump) advocating a national popular vote. I wonder what could've happened since then that made so many Republicans suddenly change their minds?
Lol the realization that they’d never win a federal election again seems to have done the trick
It’s pretty clear that Republicans have become a minority governing party and couldn’t win the popular vote in their current revolting incarnation.
So glad you brought this up again! I live in a constitutional monarchy, and we elect through a democratic proces; a representative democracy. We used to have something similar to an electoral college, but we got rid of it within the first hundred years of our first constitution. Claiming that things should never change is ridiculous! If we had followed that mentality we would still be run by an absolute monarch or live under feudalism. Changes are necessary for a country to remain for more than a thousand years
Change is fine as long as it makes sense. This is the essence of liberalism vs. conservatism.
@@CStone-xn4oy I don’t understand your comment… what is the antecedent of “this” in the sentence “This is the essence of liberalism vs conservatism.” Your prior sentence says “Change is fine as long as it makes sense.” and that clearly doesn’t fit the following sentence… are you trying to say that liberals can accept change and conservatives can’t? I was taught (and I’ve seen nothing to contradict what I was taught) that liberalism believes in the significance of liberty and equal rights, and conservatism believes in promoting and maintaining traditional institutions. I guess that could be interpreted to be about change…
@@jpe1 To clarify, liberals and conservatives balance each other out. Liberals call for changes in society. Conservatives are reluctant to change unless absolutely necessary. The result is that change in a society usually occurs in a slow, steady, and stable way (with the occasional period of rapid change thrown in every now and then).
Yes I am using liberalism and conservatism more as the ideologies behind liberal and conservative thought. I am aware that the terms liberalism and conservatism can mean other things depending on the context.
uh...but not in this case.
The USA is very different from Canada.
Thank God.
All ex-british colony who still use their system also have districts and plurality vote. Quebec, Canada just had an election with this system, the leading party got 90 out of 125 seats so 72% of them when they got 40.98% of the total votes. The fifth biggest party got 12.91% of the total vote yet got 0 seats because they didn't have a plurality in any of the districts.
It could be a lot worse In the UK we have something called first past the post.
A system a bit like the electoral college in the fact we don’t vote directly for our prime minister we vote for MPs and some MPs don’t win with a majority over 50%
The U.S. also has first past the post, it’s just not as bad as we typically only have two options
Love Andrew’s channel, happy to see your response! Very thought provoking
Wow I'm so proud of you Mr. Beat. That you stand up for yourself and respond with factual arguments against people who use fallacies.
Mr. Beat is using fallacies himself. He appealed to authority by referring to Supreme Court.
@@popbasketball1696 is the SCOTUS not the one who directly interprets the constitution though.
@@popbasketball1696 when?
His analysis is very poor.
He doesn't understand the country.
He sneers at our most important governmental foundations.
@@stephj9378 he does understand this country and he laughs at the people who don't actually understand (and defend) how "our most important governmental foundations" is actually unfair for the people of this country and needs to be fixed so we can have everybodies votes get heard. You people love to ignore every thing other than what pleases you.
The “you don’t know what you’re talking about” argument has become as useful and true as people want it to be.
Watching this video as a Polish guy is a funny experience. I had no idea that you vote for presidents like that. I have a thought that it must consume more money and effort to did it than just let people choose from a list. You literally need to chose one guy who will then chose another. That's so incredible that I've spent last two hours researching on this topic. And btw great video and channel!
As also a polish guy I agree
It's because with such a large population, as well as population disparities between states, it can become quite uneven by just having direct voting from the population, regardless of where they come from. Having representatives cuts those enormous numbers and disparities down so the states votes are more even, at least that's the idea. Without it, states like Wyoming would have a meaningless vote, and therefore would have no benefit in being part of the union, as it would have zero say on something that affects the entire country, which includes themselves. It'd be like if China was part of the election in Poland. Why even vote at that point if anybody in poland's vote isn't even going to matter? China will decide everything, especially if it's more unified in its political views. 9 times out of 10, poland would have no sway.
@@xXJLNINJAXx okay, so therefore your vote should be four times more powerful than another in California? What you're proposing is mob minority rule, which is the current state of your country. I seriously cannot believe that the USA still hasn't made it out of the middle ages; you're proposing that the rural minority that knows jack shit about cities should be able to decide what happens to the minority here.
And yes, in the world stage and the European stage, my country (the Netherlands) has less to say than bigger countries - in the EU, that would be Germany and France, and Poland as well in our case (and most other countries here). That does not mean that we should have an equal say what happens in Europe, just bc we're small and therefore shouldn't be drowned out. Yes, we do get listened to, because that's how debate works. But if it's kinda shit for us but better for the majority, that's how it should work. That means that we'll ask for more support in other areas though, as proper politics based on connection and negotiation and working together should work.
Hint: your two-party system is at the root of most of your political problems, USA. Abolishing the Electoral College will help save that.
@@Lotjeloveslaika no, it won't. That's the two party system, not the electoral college. You're saying the rural people don't know jack about cities, but what the hell do the cities know about rural areas, or even less metropolitan cities? That would simply be a mob majority rule. Just because more people will be (incorrectly) assumed benefited does not mean they actually will be, and therefore majority is by default better. There's a reason why fewer people are in charge of making policy than the simple entirety of the populous. That's why we have representatives and not pure democracy all the way through. Hell, not everyone was even able to vote back in the day, you had to meet certain requirements. Votes are equalized by states because at the federal level, certain things shouldn't be decided that don't account for state differences. That's what the state governments are for. It's been shown time and time again the big cities want to force their rules over everyone else regardless of differences. Vice versa does not show the same results. It being equalized by state is how it should be to avoid centralization.
This is all so shortsighted. Why do people insist on getting closer and closer to a pure democracy despite nobody using one because they suck ass?
I just recently found your channel, I don't always agree with you, but you are 100% spot on with this, at least in my humble opinion.
With the Electoral College, Ross Perot has no chance.
And yet he still probably had more of a chance with the EC than the popular vote
Goddamn two party system…
This comment is actually perfect. Ross Perot won no states yet he got around 19% of the popular vote. He was rather popular for an independent yet he still didn’t stand a chance. I wonder how 1992 would have gone if Ranked Choice was a thing
I think that's more so about the party divide than the electoral college though. Even with a national popular vote, he still wasn't rivaling Clinton or HW. Maybe ranked choice voting?
You would have had Perot electors in the EC if more states had proportional allotment; so it's not exactly a problem "with" the EC.
I wonder how the 1992 race would have ended had Perot not withdrawn from the race in July. He re-entered the race in October, but by then most people had made their decision.
I agree with you. The Electoral College is antiquated. Giving states electoral weight based upon population seems rather unfair now since its original intent really does meet the need anymore. I have a preference for Ranked-Choice voting, but when I try to explain it to people, they look at me like I am speaking a foreign language.
RCV (specifically IRV) is just plurality voting with more steps. Maybe it's slightly better, but there are so many better single-winner methods available that "a little better than plurality" isn't a compelling reason to choose it.
@@galiantus1354 no, it isn't. there is an inherent difference in outcome, as voters are more encouraged to select their preferred candidate. in the current political climate, things are more polarized than ever, but most people would be willing to vote for an appealing third party. they don't because it is a terrible political strategy. a ranked system removes the bullshit political strategies aimed soley at party cohesion.
@@bobbirdsong6825 There are many ranked methods that actually deliver on what you are saying. IRV specifically is a bad method because of its method of counting. It's a math problem that not only creates vote-splitting, but obscures from the voter how to deal with that vote-splitting. So being honest can hurt you, especially in a competitive race (and don't we want competitive races?). Case-in-point: Alaska used IRV recently, and if 5,200 Palin voters had just not shown up to vote, Nick Begich - preferred by the majority of Palin voters over Peltola - would have won. It is a bad system. If you want a good ranked system, look at STAR, Ranked Robin, or even Single Transferrable Vote (multiwinner RCV). These systems do not punish voters for participating and being honest, and remove the benefit of party cohesion.
The problem with the United States is how difficult it is to update any of our antiquated institutions, despite their obvious inadequacies at meeting the challenges of today
In voting/elections, that includes our stubborn 2-party system, gerrymandering, FTPT, etc
Call me crazy, but this country has changed a lot since 1776
The nature of the current political system in the United States makes any efforts to reach mutual understanding seemingly impossible. Be they consumed by a conspiracy theory, indifference to our electoral process or a need to "one up the other guy," we are almost as politically divided as we were during the Civil War. The only difference may simply be the general lack of interest in dying for the cause, which is generally a good thing.
I just watched both your videos back to back and you have swayed me. With people thinking their vote will matter more it should cause more people to vote. For example someone inclined to vote for the Republican in California may not vote because it’s futile but in a populate election may be more compelled to vote.
That’s because people don’t understand the college.
Yes but at the same time people living in swing states would be less likely to vote without it
The Electoral college was made for that very reason. To prevent major population centers from strong-arming the election every time with mass numbers of votes. Not having the college would mean rural voters need not bother to vote because the absolute majority of Americans live in the city, and if the absolute majority wins the election, then the rural vote doesn’t matter. The same thing applies along party lines since party lines typically divide us into urban and rural categories as well. Republicans tend to be more suburban/rural, democrats are more often than not city dwellers. Other commenter here was absolutely right. People just don’t understand the overall purpose of the EC and that’s a problem that can only be fixed in our schools (which have been co-opted by democrats who desperately want the EC gone so they can win every future election). Anyway😅.
@@lsemaldokhar4154 this is cope because you're acting like every city is a monolith that'll vote democratic every time, when you're just thinking of ones like detroit, chicago, new york, sacremento and los angeles which do NOT control an absolute majority of the population. even if we took literally every person in all of those states, allowed them all to vote and they ALL voted for one party (california+new york+michigan+illinois) you'd have 24% of the population.. less than a quarter
I dislike the electoral college because it undermines our education. Democracy is also something I truly value.
Great vid Mr Beat! Honestly, I really liked your last Electoral College video too. In my view, it was setup during a different era and most people would like to see a majority wins system. (or me who'd like to see a multiple party system and majority wins).
I also love the arguments that try using the founding fathers to support the electoral college, when the founders themselves in lager years despised the electoral college and considered it their biggest mistake at the constitutional convention. Hell, James Madison in his later years proposed an endment that would've eliminated thr EC and replaced it with ranked choice voting (Madison letter to George Genry. 1824).
I forgot about that Madison letter and just Tweeted it!
Essentially, nearly all of the problems with the Electoral College do not stem from the Electoral College itself, but everything that goes into how the Electoral College works. It's based the number of representatives in Congress - but there are too few representatives in Congress for the size of our population. It's supposed to be reflective of our Congressional make up, but aside from Maine, it's all or nothing, unlike our Congressional system. And First Past The Post is the worst voting system we could use. Full stop. It is a problem, not just in Presidential elections, but ALL elections. We should use an alternative. My vote would be for Ranked Choice, but literally anything would be better.
You're great, Mr. Beat. Stay strong!
Good Stuff. Keep fighting the good fight.
Getting elected officials on board for changing the electoral system will be difficult, since they largely benefit from it as is.
Informing people about some of the possible the problems with the systems as is, along with some possible ways to improve them is so important.
I just want to say I appreciate you for thoughtfully considering the comments on your video and not 'rage responding' to comments like I have seen others do. It's not that I've seen other TH-camrs post angry response-to-comments videos, it's that they don't concede any points the comments made at all. You took the time to thoughtfully respond to a wide spectrum of negative comments and conceded when you were wrong. I liked you a lot already, but now I like you more. I feel like I can generally trust your perspective. Even when I disagree with you (which I rarely do, I'll admit I'm stuck in an echo chamber that favors your opinions), I know your perspective is trustworthy. It's a much-needed voice in a time when media in general has become very untrustworthy.
I also feel your perspectives generally provide space for disagreement. I feel that if I wrote a thoughtful comment in favor of the electoral college, you wouldn't lash out at me.
I enjoyed this format and style. Also appreciate you following up on topics as time goes by to further showcase examples and talking points.
Great job Mr Beat. I've been ready to end the stupidity of electoral college for many years.
I love your perspective, especially about being open minded and accepting other views and criticism. Great example for people to follow. Thanks!
I love the consistency of Mr. Beat's views on this topic. The people who treat the electoral college as some holy doctrine inscribed by the guardian angels of the US on a stone tablet are deeply weird.
There are many aspects of our constitution that are weird, and we just keep the structure of the Constitution just because we fetishize the founders. They were a bunch of 20-something political nerds. Many of them were very flawed, very elitist, and very narrow-minded relative, and the system they created was new in 1790, but is very out-of-date today.
A Bicameral Legislature is not normal today. Pardon power is not normal either. The way we view rights and responsibilities of government are very odd. We have very few rights and they are very absolute rights. In other countries they have many more rights like the right to education, healthcare, safe working conditions, living wage, privacy, democratic government, life, etc and they have so many that their laws have to balance all of those rights when they conflict with each other.
@@stevencaruso825 Damn, why do you have to list all of the elements the Founders put into the Constitution that were actually pretty epic? Of all the things the Founders got most wrong, slavery and having a power Executive separated from Parliament, you didn't mention either.
@@stevencaruso825 It’s not bicameralism itself that’s unusual, it’s the fact that the Senate still has real power instead of being more-or-less just a formality
It certainly not a holy decree. Its a creative and clever solution to one of the fundamental flaws with Democracy. It helps to prevent small states from being completely ignored while at the same time preserving the power of the majority.
@@CStone-xn4oy it was a solution for getting slave states to join a very tenuous union. Plenty of more democratic countries with proportional representation like Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Finland do fine. Lol
As the famous David Skylark once said: “They hate us cause they ain’t us”…Keep it going Mr. Beat…You are the best!!!
To the people citing everyone the founding fathers did is good and should never be changed.
The founding fathers owned slaves, should we still have slavery? No! We shouldn't.
Dear lord, it’s so nice to just hear someone speak common sense about how our elections should go. And that’s such a good point that LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE is voted on by a majority vote, the president should be as well
There are some people on the right who want to implement electoral colleges on State Elections too (like RazorFist) because they seems to care more about the location that votes come from rather than the actual amount of votes.
"We can't let California and New York control the country and ignore everyone else! We need to let a DIFFERENT couple of states control the country and ignore everyone else!!!"
Did you know Texas and Florida both have more electoral votes that New York
@@alexiarai955 ahh but we can't let facts get in the way of a good narrative can we?
but without the electoral college, America would have had only Democrat presidents for 100 years ?
Exactly! Proponents of keeping the EC don't want a handful of big states deciding the election, but with the EC it's a handful of medium-population swing states deciding the election. That's worse! At least with the bigger states represent more people!
So can you tell me what these couple states that currently control the country with the electoral college are?
I think the Star/Ranked Choice methods are especially effective because it pushes voters to be aware of every candidate and their policies, not just their favorite. I feel all too often people just go with who they like best in the beginning and ignore the rest.
No no, the college still is horrible lol. And it will probably be gone in my lifetime. Thank god…
Great video!! Thanks so much for creating a thoughtful dialogue around a complex topic. 🙂
Mr. Beat you are a class act as always. There are many such as Crowder that will move the goalposts forever, and it’s nice to see a REAL educator collide with their nonsense. Much love.
I'd vote to call him "Onthe". Onthe Beat 😉🥁🎶
Mr Beat, I may not always agree with you. But you are a very good analyst. I consider myself center right and I think that the electoral college is not perfect. I would maybe go for proportional votes instead of winners take all. Also your joint video ranking all presidents was great. Keep up the good content 👌 😊
I'm giving Ground News a shot solely on your recommendation.
It's a great idea, and solves a problem I've been dealing with for awhile.
Ty.
The electoral college is one of the dumbest things we still uphold.
Not really our primary systems are FAR worse as those literally give a handful of people power to elect whoever they want and use absurd systems that are far more complex than what needs to be. No EC has a reason to exist but its due to be updated in a way that more reflects the splits in states as winner take all doesnt reflect the voter maps. The problem is that if the electoral college was to just vanish and was replaced by pure population it would swing the power to much into the hands of major cities and population centers when it come to canidates campaigns. The college was created to curb "tyranny of the majority" basically a system where major cities get to vote for the president and therefore his/her platform and campaign will be tailored to only cities and large urban areas, meanwhile small rural areas that produce very vital resources like food and cash crops, and manufactured goods dont get any thought. 2016 honestly showed really why we need the a system like the EC as Clinton didnt even campaign in the rust belt meaning the area where most of America's food is grown and its exports are manufactured, meaning had she won their needs would have been disregarded for the costal areas that have larger populations. Now fast forward to 2020 where Clinton begins imposing COVID mandates on these same areas where people arent crammed together like in cities but becasue she never bothered to even give them a thought of even campaigning there are suddenly being forced to wear masks in sweltering 100F weather dispite the nearest person not being within 2 miles of you. Im absolutely for a better system that more reflects the wants of the country, but not if it comes at the expense of groups of people. We would have to create major campaign reforms (which im also very much for) to help prevent certain areas from getting special treatment.
The only demographic group who majority support the electoral college are white Donald Trump voters. The electoral college has no majority support from any other demographic group!
@@josephimperatrice5552 You do realize thats like 50% of the country right ?
@@TheSilverPhoenix100
50% of Americans are not pro-Donald Trump because if they were Donald Trump would not have lost the national popular vote twice. And everytime Donald Trump loses the national popular vote he always loses it by a landslide and not by a hair. He loses it by the millions and not by the thousands let alone the hundreds. And also during Donald Trump's entire four years in office no poll has ever put his approval rating at 50%!
@@josephimperatrice5552 triggered much ?
I love your videos!! Thank you Mr Beat
Man I've been wanting a ranked voting system like that of France for ages now, and I hope we can one day peacefully and successfully utilize such a system... tho I doubt that will happen any time soon.