electoral college

Capitol Hill sees a very busy Wednesday, President Biden touts low crime rates, and several Democrats signal they might not certify a Donald Trump electoral victory. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.

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When George W Bush and Al Gore ran against one another, most pundits predicted a tight race. Absolutely zero of them predicted the election would come down to a few hundred votes. Today, we still don’t know who won.

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Am I too panicked about the future of American democracy?

My colleague Ross Douthat thinks so. He points to research suggesting that voter ID laws and absentee voting have modest effects on elections and the reality that Republican state officials already have tremendous power to alter election outcomes — powers they did not use in the aftermath of 2020 and show few signs of preparing to use now.

So I invited Ross on the show to hash it out: Am I too alarmed, or is he too chill? We also talk about his trio of recent columns trying to find a middle ground in the fight over how America understands, and teaches, it’s own history; as well as how his own medical struggles with treatment-resistant Lyme disease have shaped how he’s understood and covered the coronavirus.

Mentioned: 

"Can Anything End the Voting Wars?" by Ross Douthat

Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign by Frances Lee

"What Progressives Want, and What Conservatives Are Fighting" by Ross Douthat

"The Excesses of Antiracist Education" by Ross Douthat

"Why a Patriotic Education Can Be Valuable" by Ross Douthat

"Why the Lab Leak Theory Matters" by Ross Douthat

"Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival" by Skyler B. Johnson, Henry S. Park, Cary P. Gross and James B. Yu

The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Recovery by Ross Douthat

"The War That Made Our World" by Ross Douthat

Book recommendations: 

Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 by Fred Anderson

Champlain's Dream by David Hackett Fischer

Mom Genes: Inside the New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct by Abigail Tucker

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.

Trevor explores several aspects of government and politics in the U.S., including the history of the Senate filibuster, presidents who lied about their health and pioneering first ladies.

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Follow the crew:

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https://linktr.ee/calacanis

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks

https://twitter.com/friedberg

Follow the pod:

https://twitter.com/theallinpod

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Intro Music Credit:

https://rb.gy/aizgdm

Intro Video Credit:

https://twitter.com/MikeSylvan

Referenced in the show:

The Killer D.A. by David Sacks

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Show Notes:

0:00 New intro for the besties - listen here: https://rb.gy/aizgdm

2:14 Sacks' trip to Miami

6:01 Reflecting on the riot at the US Capitol: police response, double standard with BLM protest, big picture, prosecuting Trump & healing the nation post-Trump

29:43 2016 Election interference, reasons for unrest & polarization, Trump's culpability

44:19 Should the 25th Amendment be invoked?

49:51 Democrats win Georgia runoff elections, did Trump's implosion lose Georgia for the GOP?

56:23 How Friedberg would handle vaccine distribution

1:07:45 San Francisco's Killer D.A., recalling Gavin Newsom, Kim Kardashian for Governor of CA

The Supreme Court rejects a Texas lawsuit aiming to overturn election results, Attorney General William Barr resigns, and President Trump rolls back water restrictions for showers.

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Trevor gives a primer on faithless electors, Jordan Klepper talks to pro-Trump demonstrators at the Million MAGA March, and Kevin Hart discusses his stand-up special "Zero F**ks Given."

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The winner-take-all system used by the Electoral College in the United States appears nowhere in the Constitution. It awards all of a state’s electors to the candidate with the most votes, no matter how small the margin of victory. Critics say that means millions of votes are effectively ignored.

The fairness of the Electoral College was seriously questioned in the 1960s. Amid the civil rights push, changes to the system were framed as the last step of democratization. But a constitutional amendment to introduce a national popular vote for president was eventually killed by segregationist senators in 1970.

Desire for an overhaul dwindled until the elections of 2000 and 2016, when the system’s flaws again came to the fore. In both instances, the men who became president had lost the popular vote.

Jesse Wegman, a member of The Times’s editorial board, describes how the winner-take-all system came about and how the Electoral College could be modified.

Guest: Jesse Wegman, a member of The New York Times’s editorial board.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Background reading:

• Here’s a guide to how the Electoral College works.
• Watch Jesse’s explainer, from our Opinion section, on how President Trump could win the election — even if he loses.

Swing states are all the rage once again this election season, but the makeup has changed a bit. Learn all about what makes a swing state a swing state right now.

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In the US, winner-take-all voting has created A LOT of political polarization. But what if rather than voting for one candidate, you could rank all of them so if your first choice doesn’t win, your vote goes to your second choice? So long, polarization!

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On the morning after election day, pundits, pollsters, politicians, and citizens woke up feeling stunned. All signs, all year, had been pointing towards a victory for Democrat Hillary Clinton. So, what happened? We ask one of the few people who didn't get it wrong: the historian Allan Lichtman.