Jill Lepore

And I thought this was the natural successor to the 25th Amendment that...

Which is also about presidential succession and the legitimacy of whoever's holding the old Oval Office.

That, okay, so here's another problem of presidential succession, which is the Electoral College and the likelihood of someone winning the White House who did not win the majority of the votes.

So he...

I'm sorry, I realize my answers become like tails.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He thinks he's got this in the bag because he gets like, he does a survey of like every political scientist in the country.

They all approve it.

Americans in public opinion polls, it's like way above 80% approve abolishing the electoral college.

It passes the House.

It's gonna go to the Senate, it's 1969.

And really the only people weirdly who oppose the reform is the NAACP.

The NAACP has thought since the 1950s, before the Voting Rights Act,

That the Electoral College was like one of the few things that amplified the black vote in the North.

So blacks can't vote in the South because of Jim Crow.

But in the North, they can vote.

And in the cities where they have large numbers, their votes are amplified by the Electoral College.

That was the thinking.

And so they construed, NAACP as an organization, construed any attempt to tinker with the Electoral College as a way to disenfranchise black voters.

Hmm.