When I was born, my parents voted to call me Matthew Beat. Most of you would probably vote
to call me Mr. Beat. But if you are one of the many people who disagrees
with me about the Electoral College, perhaps you have other names for me.
My video dunking on the Electoral College is my most disliked video on my channel. 32% of
people who have watched it have disliked it. Sad to say, many of the dislikes came from people who
didn’t even bother watching the whole video. The whole video is 19 minutes long, and just
14 minutes after I posted it, it already had 11 dislikes. Way to keep an open mind, internet!
Even recently, Electoral College defenders are still very angry at me for this video,
leaving me comments like this: You are an idiot. The electoral college is to protect
the republic. If you do not like America then leave. It's very simple and very clear
you have no idea what you are talking about! And this: Good grief. I just found your channel.
This video is far worse than I could possibly have imagined. You spend 19 minutes on the electoral
college and never once attempt to explain why it was established in the first place. We're left
thinking it had something to do with racism and white male privilege. This is pure propaganda.
Well first of all, it WAS propaganda. Not sure if it was PURE propaganda, but yeah,
the whole point of the video was to promote the idea that the Electoral College is bad.
But here’s the thing. I try to keep an open mind and I always love a good challenge. I
read the comments because I wanted to see if Electoral College defenders could present some
good counter points to what I was arguing. Sad to say, most of the comments were just
repeating very tired talking points or ad hominem attacks. Oh look, they are again referencing a
quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin that I first heard in middle school. Thanks.
“Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.”
Look, the analogy way off here. Think about it. It’d be more accurate to say democracy
is three lambs voting on what to eat for lunch.
Oh by the way, there is absolutely NO evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever
said that. The quote has been attributed to him only for about the past 22 years,
and, according to my research, was first printed in the Los Angeles Times in 1992.
Regardless, I did want to respond to the most well-thought out comments
who made the best points. At the same time, I will be responding
to this video, by a dude named Andrew from a channel called Don’t Run, Walk It Out Productions.
I mean Walk Run….er….hold up Don’t Walk, RUN! Productions. Anyway, I’ll admit it was one of
the better videos I have come across defending the Electoral College in recent years. Andrew clearly
knows his stuff. Unfortunately, he thinks I don’t even know the definition of “republic.” I mean,
in that same video he is criticizing, I gave the definition of republic, but here it is again: A
republic is a type of government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled
to vote and is exercised by representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
But first, if you are watching this video as an Electoral College Defender, first of all,
thank you. Second, you are a rare cookie. Most people are stuck in their echo chambers,
only seeking out information that confirms their own biases. This is why I am excited to once again
be sponsored by Ground News, a news platform that makes it easy to get out of your echo chambers by
showing you how breaking news is being covered across the political spectrum. It’s a great way
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Dude you are an idiot… It’s called Tyranny of the Majority! It’s simple,
I’m sorry if you can’t comprehend it.
You really didn’t give a good argument against mob rule.
Fair enough. I guess I need to expand on the mob rule bit.
First of all, saying that democracy inevitably leads to mob rule is a slippery slope fallacy.
I think majoritarianism, an idea which says that the majority of the population
is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, is a good thing,
and you know what the majority of folks out there ALSO think majoritarianism is a good thing,
so...see what I did there? Odds are, you think majoritarianism is a good thing, too.
You tend to make choices based on majorities, don’t you. If the majority of people tell you
Whataburger is good, you give it a try. If the majority of people tell you that The Shawshank
Redemption is a good movie, you watch it. Why can’t you trust the majority to pick the right
political candidate? BECAUSE THAT CANDIDATE SUCKS, OK! Well that’s just your opinion. But
you like people to know your opinion, don’t you. You like your voice to be heard? That smells like
democracy to me. Literally every other election in the country is done by a majority vote. Heck,
Electoral College defenders are even cool with the MAJORITY of electoral votes being counted.
So what about THE MOB? Well mobs CAN be irrational. Mobs can be violent. We saw
this on January 6th when a mob tried to overturn a….ya know…ELECTION. But governments literally
can also be violent and irrational, but governments are made up of PEOPLE.
Getting rid of the Electoral College doesn’t mean we’d have mob rule or a
tyranny of the majority. We’d still live in a constitutional republic,
so the law would rule over all else and REPRESENTATIVES would still make major
decisions. It’s an INDIRECT democracy so there are safeguards against mobs.
But maybe you’re still worried about minorities not having a voice? Well,
majoritarianism doesn’t mean the minority has no voice. There are still plenty of
safeguards for the minority. Take, THE ENTIRE U.S. CONSTITUTION, which spells out the limited
powers the federal government has and even lists out specific individual rights every
citizen has. For example, religious minorities in the United States are protected. Ethnic
minorities in the United States even often get special treatment, for crying out loud.
Minorities can be mobs, too. (Looking down) Oh no, the mob of Electoral College
defenders is already here, furiously typing about how wrong I am. According to the mob of
Electoral College defenders, even though they are a minority, they are the best mob to represent us.
Ok enough about mobs. I did get a lot of people defending what Steven Crowder really meant when
he said the United States wasn’t a democracy. Crowder meant “America has never been a [direct]
democracy”, that is pretty clear 9:09
Assuming this is coming at me in good faith and not attempting to move the goalpost,
I apologize for misrepresenting Crowder there. I do agree that the United States has never
had a direct democracy….well, except for referendums, and recall elections,
but that’s at the local and state levels so yeah at the federal level Crowder is
right and I agree that we SHOULDN’T have direct democracy at the federal level.
By the way, much of the criticisms of my original video were examples of the straw
man fallacy. They were attacking a straw man. I never once called for a direct
democracy to replace our constitutional republic. I just think we should vote for
President the same way we vote for LITERALLY EVERY OTHER PUBLIC OFFICE in this country.
Speaking of logical fallacies,
there were also several faulty appeal to authority fallacy comments….
The problem with utopian theorists is they expect a perfect world. The founding were far more ahead
to their contemporaries and most of their ideas are still very relevant now and in the future.
Yes there’s things to improve on but what the founding Fathers did is just awesome.
Don't remove it. Its done it's purpose for over
200 years. Don't change it because your mad you didn't get the result you wanted!
The founders set it up that way for a reason People that don't like the Electoral College
think they are smarter than the Founders. I think those very smart people should change
the Senate too. Why should all the states get only 2 senators ?
Founding Fathers this, and Founding Fathers that
It’s a faulty appeal to authority fallacy because people are saying the Electoral College must be
good because the Founding Fathers believed it was good. But the Founding Fathers didn’t
have access to the same information we do today. No offense to the Founding Fathers,
but you watching this video right now are likely MUCH more informed than they ever were. Plus,
if the Founding Fathers were around today, do you really think they’d still have the
same views about the Electoral College? Read Anti-Federalist Paper #72 by the way.
9:42 The best argument is that it prevents
the possibility of having a nationwide recount which would be a headache and allow for corruption
easily. With basically 50 separate state elections we only need recounts in at most 1 or 2 states.
Ah, but you can still have 50 separate elections WITHOUT the Electoral College. Federalism doesn’t
have to be put aside to reform how we elect the President and Vice President. In fact,
did you know that federal elections are already incredibly decentralized?
Most states report election results at the precinct level,
which is a small area in which all voters go to a single polling place to vote.
Spoken like a true socialist. Democracy appears NO WHERE in the constitution,
communist chose not to read it like yourself. So what? The word “privacy” isn’t mentioned in
the Constitution. There’s nothing about political parties in there,
nothing about contraceptives or abortion, nothing about corporations or labor unions.
So much of what we get out of the Constitution these days is IMPLIED, not literally in the text,
and it’s been that way since at least 1819. It protects the minority states from majority
states. Imagine living in Kansas state and there is a vote that New York and Kansas
had to vote on a law that would change your life style. If your Kansas you're screwed.
That username, though. Anyway, no, with a popular vote, every vote is equal. Also,
every person in one state doesn’t vote the same way. And if anything,
borders are becoming increasingly meaningless when it comes to cultural differences.
The federal government is not supposed to govern individuals. States are supposed to
govern as individual nations. The federal government is supposed to govern between
states. The only reason that people think this whole argument makes sense is because
the federal government has its slimy tentacles in WAY too many areas of individual life.
It’s a good argument, although it still feels a bit hoc. Then again,
this comment seems to be from someone stuck in 1787, as many Electoral College defenders
often apparently are. Can someone send these guys a time machine?
Let’s look at the Electoral College through the lens of 2022. It’s not the 1780s anymore, ok.
Now, at the root of my argument against the Electoral College is that the President
ought not represent the states, but the PEOPLE. The Presidency, well the executive branch as a
whole, has rapidly become nationalized since the founding of the republic. The federal government
has tremendous influence over our lives, and greatly supersedes state power. Sure,
this wasn’t always the case, but over time, especially over the past 100 years,
the federal government has had more and more of an active role in the lives of Americans,
and the courts have mostly been ok with such an increase of federal power. Now, you can
disagree with that…fine, but you need to accept the reality which we’re living in. Not only that,
states depend HEAVILY on the federal government these days. For example, West Virginia gets
45% of its revenue from federal sources. Yeah it’d be screwed without the federal government.
And yeah, I know the Founders generally wanted the STATES to elect the President, not the
PEOPLE. I know, I teach this stuff for a living. But, that can change. We can change that. And as
I said in my previous video, a lot has happened since then. We have telegraphs now. The people
SHOULD elect the President. Would that give the President even more power than they have now?
Absolutely not, and anyone who has made that claim has yet to provide the evidence to back that up.
I was a bit surprised at how many Electoral College defenders LOVED the
fact that every vote was not counted equally. And the reason why small pop votes are worth
more than big pop votes is an attempt to even out the votes between big pop states
and small pop states. So in reality if you want to end the electoral college,
that means you want big pop states to have all the power, the most of the American populace
are within California, New York, and Texas. Cali and New York has more people than Texas.. boom,
Democrats have complete and utter power over who is made President. That's
a pretty fascist thought to want to have all opposing voices to your party silenced
First of all, Florida has more people than New York. Second, I still think
everyone deserves to have their voice heard equally. If you are for the Electoral College,
you’re ok with some people’s voices being louder than others. You’re ok with inequality.
When you say big states like California and Texas will have all the power without the
Electoral College, no they won’t, because as Electoral College defenders also say
remember it’s the Electoral College that makes it that STATES vote, not people. If
people’s individual votes are counted instead, it WON’T FREAKING MATTER WHAT STATE THEY LIVE IN.
Did you know there are Democrats in Alabama and Republicans in Massachusetts? If you get
rid of the Electoral College, they’d actually be heard for the very first time. And again,
I am saying all of this who BENEFITS from the Electoral College, meaning if you live in Florida,
your vote is currently counted way less right now than my vote here in Kansas.
Stop trying to make it seem like I'm better than you. I'm not.
In conclusion, if the Electoral College is so good,
why is it that not one other country in the entire world has implemented it like we do?
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. In fact, (looking down) there
they are having their voices heard right now, just typing away bless their hearts.
Those talking points again, eh? Haven’t heard that one before. Our constitutional
republic should favor the majority of us. Minority rule really is horrible.
I’ve heard your arguments to keep the Electoral College for four years now. But every single one
of your arguments is (turns) and no offense (turns) but they’re so weak and predictable
that they’re kinda 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, but there is overwhelming evidence right now that the federal
government is NOT truly representative of what the majority of Americans want.
That said, I’m willing to compromise. At the very least, each state ought to divide
up its electoral votes by district like Maine and Nebraska does. Can we at least get that?
8:44 Well I just offered a solution, but additionally I think we should implement
either STAR voting or ranked choice voting on top of that to make the presidential
elections more representative. I’ve made videos on how those work, by the way.
And if you still don’t agree with that, (turn) let your voice be heard (turn) by
commenting below and if you DO wish to reform or get rid of the Electoral College
hit that like button (turn) ya know, it’s almost as if you are VOTING on the video.