This is the moment we can lose our republic. Nuts that it could be to MAGA morons.
And nothing of value would be lost. In it’s ashes we could get an actual democracy built for the people, by the people.
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And our electorate is in part why the electoral college exists and why the founders thought we shouldn’t have a direct vote: we’re too fucking stupid and too easily swayed by a populist. Too bad the actual electors won’t do what they’re allowed to do and not vote for Trump even if the people do.
At the time the electoral college was instituted, only white land owning men could vote, the majority of the population was illiterate, and only the very rich could afford to be well-versed in the affairs of state.
To compare that horse and buggy time with today’s world with near-complete literacy, mass media and widespread internet access is even more moronic than you are pretending that the electorate is.
The problem isn’t that Americans are significantly dumber than the people of other nations.
It’s that the US is one of the most propagandized nations in the world due to billionaires, hectomillionaires, their corporations, and their industry associations owning the mainstream media and the vast majority of the politicians as well as the political machines pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Revered as minor deities as they are, the Founding Fathers couldn’t have predicted the conditions 250 years into the future. Including the fact that the very mechanism they included to make sure that the constitution would be updated to fit the times, the amendment process, would become functionally impossible.
Tl;Dr: the problem isn’t people being too stupid, the problem is that the will of the people has been overruled by organized corruption and propaganda.
Needs an unpaywalled link.
