On Wednesday, during his nightly diatribe against Republicans, Late Night host Seth Meyers alleged that the GOP can only win elections by utilizing "cheat codes," by which Meyers simply meant rules he doesn't like.
Talking about the recent California recall, Meyers declared, "it's also not surprising that this was the way Republicans tried to stage a takeover of the most populous state in America. Not through a normal election but through a weird loophole where they would only need a small percentage of voters to win."
Perhaps Meyers should direct his ire towards the Democrats who run California if he doesn't like their rules or his progressive forefathers who thought the idea of a recall election was necessary to further democratize the country.
Speaking of "cheat codes," Meyers sounded like Colbert the night before with this majoritarian smack talk about how Democrats are always the majority:
This is the same party that's appointed a majority of the current Supreme Court justices, yet has only won the national popular vote once in the last 32 years. In 2012, they won control of the House through gerrymandering despite getting fewer total votes than Democrats. In the Senate, there's currently a 50/50 tie despite the fact that Democrats represent 41 million more Americans. In fact, Senate Republicans haven't represented an actual majority of Americans since 1996.
Not only were two of those GOP-appointed justices appointed after George W. Bush won the popular vote in 2024, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer were appointed by Bill Clinton, who never got 50 percent of the vote. Does that make them somehow illegitimate?
As for gerrymandering, one could attempt to explain to Meyers that liberals demanded "majority minority districts" to increase minority representation in Congress, which can lead to more Republican-leaning districts once you put minority neighborhoods in one bloc. You don't blame the Republicans if a Cori Bush earns 79 percent of the vote, or Rashida Tlaib gets 84 percent of the vote. Those districts were created for this purpose.
Meyers conveniently ignored that the GOP has frequently won the popular vote in the nationwide House count. His figures about the Senate come from the left-wing site The Daily Kos which noted the population of each senator's state and the percentages won over a three cycle period since only one-third of the Senate is up for re-election at a time. Of course, that is not how the real world works. The 2008, 2010, and 2012 elections, for example, were three very different cycles.
Not that Meyers cares for such things. He just wishes the entire country could be like California or New York. By simply playing by the rules, Meyers accused Republicans of cheating:
The GOP's entire political strategy is based on exploiting cheat codes rather than appealing to a majority of voters -- like when Mitch McConnell realized he could just manipulate the filibuster to stonewall everything Obama did and turn reconciliation, an arcane, budgetary tactic, into the only vehicle for passing legislation.
Alternatively, Democrats could simply try appealing to voters in the middle of the country by ditching the Meyers brand of progressivism.
This segment was sponsored by Progressive.
Here is a transcript for the September 16 show:
NBC
Late Night with Seth Meyers
12:46 AM ET
SETH MEYERS: California stop wasting money on recalls and fix your pizza but it's also not surprising that this was the way Republicans tried to stage a takeover of the most populous state in America. Not through a normal election but through a weird loophole where they would only need a small percentage of voters to win.
This is the same party that's appointed a majority of the current Supreme Court justices, yet has only won the national popular vote once in the last 32 years. In 2012, they won control of the House through gerrymandering despite getting fewer total votes than Democrats. In the Senate, there's currently a 50/50 tie despite the fact that Democrats represent 41 million more Americans. In fact, Senate Republicans haven't represented an actual majority of Americans since 1996.
The GOP's entire political strategy is based on exploiting cheat codes rather than appealing to a majority of voters like when Mitch McConnell realized he could just manipulate the filibuster to stonewall everything Obama did and turn reconciliation, an arcane, budgetary tactic, into the only vehicle for passing legislation.
They're like those kids in middle school who would cheat during Goldeneye by turning themselves invincible, and you'd ask them how they did it and they say, "It's easy you just do L plus down, R plus C right, R plus C up, L plus right, L plus C down, R plus C up, L plus right, R plus down, L plus left, plus R plus C right." And then you spend the rest of the game trying to figure it out. And while you're not paying attention, they'd eat all the cauliflower Doritos.
