Astead Herndon

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So here's one thing I never understood about the 2024 election.

Why did Democrats spend so much time saying they were going to protect democracy?

Now, I get it.

Donald Trump has tested every single limit of our political system.

And of course, the health of our democracy is an important goal.

But to say you're going to protect democracy implies that democracy was working in the first place, or at least that it was working until Donald Trump came along.

And that isn't true.

American democracy is broken, and most of us are written out of the political process on purpose.

It's a big reason why Congress passes less legislation than ever, why the Senate rarely seems to reflect public opinion, or why presidential elections obsess over the same seven states.

Let me explain.

I'm going to show three charts in three minutes that help you understand why American democracy needs to be improved, not just protected, and why one person, one vote is more myth than reality.

For those listening, I'm going to bring up a couple charts that show the structural health of our democracy or lack thereof.

The first is about the Electoral College.

Now, everybody knows that the Electoral College is a little messed up,

We don't choose the president via direct popular vote.

We choose it through this funky system made hundreds of years ago.

But did you know that it's not just that the Electoral College causes us to focus on six or seven states for battleground presidential results?

It also means that the electoral votes themselves aren't distributed equally.