Hey @reillyadam, @Kadzis, and @ZoeSMathews! Happy Halloween! I was just doing some Halloween baking and listening to this episode of the Scrum feat. @AlexKeyssar talking about the Electoral College: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-electoral-college-what-is-it-good-for/id889409550?i=1000495660523
Awesome episode!!! I have some thoughts...

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First of all, this sounds like an awesome book-- just the other day, I read this other interview with the author, in @jacobinmag: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/electoral-college-abolish-keyssar-trump-election
Both that interview and yours really make me want to read the book (and work to abolish the Electoral College!)

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So, I'm grateful to you three for bringing the book and the conversation to your podcast/ your audience of #mapoli people.
But I also wanted to offer a response/ criticism to the concluding statements that @Kadzis made at the end of the podcast.

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He was talking about Progressives complaining about "the rules" (i.e., the structural features of the US electoral system, including the Constitution and other structures that have been added on to it) rather than accepting them and trying to win elections within "the rules".

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@Kadzis described the GOP as having "a geographic advantage" in these structures- namely, the Electoral College, the Senate, winner-take-all elections, gerrymandering, a stacked judiciary, etc- and prescribes that Progressives/ Democrats should try to win over more "landmass"

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But that gets right to the heart of the problem! Calling rural areas that vote GOP "landmass" obscures that Dems win in rural areas that are predominantly POC: Native areas in SD, AK, AZ, UT, MT, etc; the Rio Grande valley; Black areas in MS, AL, GA, NC, VA, etc

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It's precisely *white* rural areas that Dems don't win, and it's precisely those *white* areas that are wildly overrepresented according to "the rules" that Kadzis is saying Progressives should accept. But "the rules" don't just amplify white voices by accident!

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The interview w/ @AlexKeyssar just a few min earlier made it clear that the Ele Coll has been preserved- in 1817, the 1960s, & today- by white Southern Senators, from James Barbour to Mitch McConnell, explicitly to preserve the racial status quo in their respective eras.

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We could tell similar stories about the Senate, the filibuster, gerrymandering, judicial review of legislation, etc, etc.

This is the origin AND the impact of "the rules"!

There have been a few times in US history when progressives have challenged and changed these rules...

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... namely, the Civil War/ Reconstruction, the New Deal, & the Civil Rights Movement. If progressives today don't take our inspiration from those eras and reject "the rules," we don't deserve to be called progressive at all!

Of course, one has to win elections to do that...

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... but even while trying to win elections, pass legislation, and build movements under the rules as they exist, we should never ever lose sight of the fact that the rules are unfair, were designed to be, have always been, & still are. Unfair, specifically, to Black people.

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