MSNBC All In host Chris Hayes subjected himself to withering conservative ridicule on Friday night when he lamely attempted to defend Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's opposition to the Electoral College, accusing Team Trump of sending out an "insane" e-mail "basically accusing AOC, because she was advocating for majority rule, of attempting a coup to disenfranchise Republican conservatives."
In front of a live audience, Hayes actually said "the weirdest thing about the Electoral College is the fact that if it wasn't specifically in the Constitution for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional." And then Team Hayes actually tweeted out the video of this bumbling gaffe!
CHRIS HAYES: Do we actually really believe in democracy, right? The question before us now in the Electoral College question is, are we going to actually live up to the promise of one person, one vote.
Now, to be fair, it is not surprising the Republicans are defending the Electoral College, right? There's a very obvious reason for that. Since 1992 we have had seven presidential elections. Republicans have won the popular vote one time but they've gotten three presidents out of it which is a very sweet deal if you're the Republican Party, right?
[Actually, that's bad math. The "three" presidents are George W. Bush getting elected twice, and Donald Trump.]
You can see why, on just basic tactical grounds, why the Republican Party would want to continue a system in which they can lose a majority of votes and still get all the powers of the presidency, appointing the Supreme Court justices and judges and signing legislation, vetoing legislation, commanding the army, everything, right? All of that with less [or fewer] votes than the Democrat got.
No wonder they like. But I think there's actually a deeper philosophical thing happening, which is the question of what exactly American democracy is for. And the weirdest thing about the Electoral College is the fact that if it wasn't specifically in the Constitution for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional.
Here's what I mean by that. Starting the 1960s, 1961 particularly, the Supreme Court started developing a jurisprudence of one person, one vote, right? The idea is that each individual vote has to carry roughly the same amount of weight as each other individual vote which is a pretty intuitive concept but it was not a reality.
There are all sorts of crazy representational systems that were created that would not give one person/one vote and would disenfranchise certain minorities. You can guess which ones.
But any attempt to carve out congressional district boundaries could be criticized as diminishing someone's "one vote" power. Today's system of minority-majority districts adds "one vote" power to black-majority areas, and according to Hayes "disenfranchises" white voters inside those boundaries. Even the boundaries of the states themselves could be attacked.
Anyhow, Twitchy reported on how Hayes doubled down on conservatives for mocking him on Twitter. "These days, conservatism is a movement deeply paranoid and pessimistic about its own appeal, increasingly retreating behind counter-majoritarian institutions."
Twitchy also recommended a thread by @AGConservative locking down the argument against Hayes. "Hayes got caught saying things that were dumb and logically inconsistent. Instead of taking the L, he is making an excuse about how his critics are just paranoid and insulated."
