Bill O’Reilly Says Abolishing Electoral College ‘Is All About Race’

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:05 pm

We are right to feel that perhaps, at the end of it all, the Founding Fathers’ vision failed both themselves and us. That same Electoral College, their ultimate failsafe against tyranny, instead of keeping a demagogue out of the White House rubber-stamped his entry.

Bill O’Reilly, however, is pretty worked up about the idea that the Electoral College is an idea whose time has passed. Because getting rtid of it is, he says, “all about race” and the idea that “white privilege in America” is seen by the left “as an oppressive force that must be done away with.”

Well, yeah. By definition if one group has privileges the others do not, it’s oppressive. And in particular, the history of white privilege in America has led to all sorts of evils, and in this election in particular, to a crtical suppression of non-white votes. Is it any wonder people are upset?

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Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:

Abolishing the Electoral College, that is the subject of tonight’s Talking Points Memo. After Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, the left in America is demanding that the Electoral College system put into place in 1787 be scrapped. But there’s a hidden reason for this.
 
As we reported, even though Secretary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million, the progressive state of California provided all of that margin. Clinton defeating Trump there by about 4.3 million votes. So if the Electoral College were abolished, presidential candidates could simply campaign in the nation’s largest states and cities, New York, L.A., Chicago, Houston, and rack up enough votes to pretty much win any election. That’s what the left wants. That’s what they want. Because in the large urban areas and blue states like New York and California, minorities are substantial. Look at the landscape. Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami. In all of these places the minority vote usually goes heavily to the Democrats. And to that New York City, L.A., Chicago, San Francisco, don’t really have a national election anymore, do you? You have targeted populations. Newspapers like the New York Times and the L.A. Times have editorialized to get rid of the Electoral College. They well know that neutralizing the largely white rural areas in the Midwest and South will assure liberal politicians get power and keep it.

As opposed to how Republican voter suppression efforts and unconstitutional gerrymandering assure conservative politicians get power and keep it. In his defense of white privilege, O’Reilly cries “Racism!”

Talking Points believes this is all about race. The left sees white privilege in America as an oppressive force that must be done away with. Therefore white working class voters must be marginalized and what better way to do that than center the voting power in the cities. Very few commentators will tell you that the heart of liberalism in America today is based on race. It permeates almost every issue. That white men have set up a system of oppression. That system must be destroyed. Bernie Sanders pedaled that to some extent Hillary Clinton did. And the liberal media tries to sell that all day long. So-called white privilege bad. Diversity good.
 
If you look at the voting patterns, it’s clear that the Democrats are heavily reliant on the minority vote. Also on the woman vote. White men have largely abandoned the Democrats and the left believes it’s because of racism that they want to punish minorities, keep them down. So that’s what’s really going on when you hear about the Electoral College and how unfair it allegedly is. Summing up, the left wants power taken away from the white establishment. They want a profound change in the way America is run. Taking voting power away from the white precincts is the quickest way to do that.

Actually, of course, getting rid of the Electoral College is an idea even Trump once supported – until it worked in his favor. Even then, he managed to make it about his “genius.”

O’Reilly here employs a number of myths about the Electoral College, including the idea that the system was put in place to protect small states (“So if the Electoral College were abolished, presidential candidates could simply campaign in the nation’s largest states and cities”).

Then there is the not so little issue that the Electoral College was supposed to protect us from demagogues like Trump. Forcing electors to cast their votes in accordance with the popular vote defeats the intent of the Founding Fathers, as the electors are supposed to be the last line of defense against tyranny.

Allowing the electors to simply ignore the popular vote leads to another evil: the negation of the democracy upon which our system of government is predicated, the political power derives from the will of the governed, as opposed to a few electors.

There are many reasons to get rid of the electoral college. When most Americans support eliminating the Electoral College, there are very few reasons to keep it. Because democracy, Bill O’Reilly.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.