0:00

I'm Shankar Vedantam, here to tell you about

0:02

a great mystery. That

0:04

mystery is you. As

0:07

the host of a podcast called Hidden Brain,

0:10

I explore big questions about what it means

0:12

to be human. Questions

0:14

like, where do our emotions come

0:16

from? Why do so many

0:18

of us feel overwhelmed by modern life? How

0:21

can we better understand the people around us? Discover

0:25

your hidden brain. Find us

0:28

wherever you get your podcasts. This

0:31

episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether

0:34

you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews

0:36

or news, you call the shots on what's

0:39

in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now

0:41

you can call them on your auto insurance too with

0:44

the name your price tool from Progressive. It works just

0:46

the way it sounds. You tell Progressive

0:48

how much you want to pay for car

0:50

insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that

0:53

fit your budget. Get your quote today at

0:55

progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers

0:57

who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty

0:59

Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match

1:02

limited by state law. From

1:06

the Center for Investigative Reporting and

1:08

PRX, this is Reveal. I'm

1:11

Al Letzen. You might

1:13

have heard there's a pretty big election

1:15

coming up this fall. And

1:17

as any school kid will tell you, US

1:19

elections are based on a bedrock

1:21

principle. One person, one vote.

1:24

Simple as that. Each vote carries the

1:27

same weight. Now I

1:29

don't need to tell you that for much of

1:31

our history, that hasn't been the case. At

1:34

different times, huge classes of people were

1:36

shut out of voting. Enslaved

1:38

black Americans, native Americans, poor white

1:40

people, this is just a partial

1:43

list. And the first time women

1:45

had the right to vote was in 1919. Today's

1:49

episode is about the current version of

1:52

this very old problem. Now

1:54

let's start by acknowledging something that's true.

1:57

Overall access to voting rights is better to...

2:00

than it was in our nation's founding.

2:02

No question about that. But

2:04

there's something else that's not really true, that

2:07

in America, each vote counts equally

2:09

in every election. But

2:12

let's explore it for a moment. Lend

2:14

me your ears as I play you

2:16

a tone. This time. Now,

2:20

that represents the power of a vote

2:23

cast by a Californian in a

2:25

presidential election. Of

2:27

course, in a presidential election, you're not

2:29

voting directly for Joe Biden or Donald

2:32

Trump. Presidents are not chosen

2:34

by a popular vote, but

2:36

the electoral college. So

2:38

you're voting to deliver your state's

2:40

electoral college votes to one of

2:43

the candidates. That's important. So

2:45

listen up. California has 54

2:48

electoral votes, 54. That

2:51

comes out to roughly one vote for every

2:53

730,000 people. Now,

2:58

let's compare that to Wyoming, a state with three

3:00

electoral votes. That's

3:03

about one for every 190,000 people. So

3:08

let's go back to our audio experiment. Here's

3:10

what the power of a Wyoming vote cast in the presidential election

3:12

sounds like. You

3:17

hear that? A Wyoming vote is

3:19

louder and more powerful than a California vote, 3.8

3:21

times more powerful. And

3:27

consider this, California is

3:30

one of our most diverse states, and

3:32

Wyoming is one of

3:35

our least diverse states. What's

3:38

the outcome? Minority rule,

3:41

a system in which some voters

3:43

count more, nearly four times in

3:45

the case of Wyoming versus California.

3:48

And it's not just presidential elections. Take

3:50

the US Senate. Who decided

3:52

that Wyoming gets two votes in the

3:54

Senate in California with nearly 69 times

3:57

the population of Wyoming same

4:00

two votes. What it all

4:02

adds up to is less democracy

4:04

than we deserve. We have author

4:07

Ari Berman to help us make sense

4:09

of how we got here and how

4:11

some reformers are trying to strengthen our

4:13

democracy by updating the rules of the

4:15

game. Ari is the

4:17

national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones

4:19

and a reporting fellow at Type Media

4:21

Center. He has a new book just

4:23

out called Minority Rule, the right-wing attack

4:25

on the will of the people and

4:27

the fight to resist it. Welcome

4:30

Ari. Hey Al, great to talk to you.

4:32

I'm excited for this conversation. Yeah, so you

4:35

know I'm sure you'd agree that for the

4:37

longest time most of

4:39

the history books that we all grew

4:41

up with regarded the Constitution as a

4:43

work of pure genius and that the

4:46

framers are sometimes depicted as if they

4:48

had halos. That's right. The Constitution is

4:50

the closest thing we have to a

4:53

civic religion in this country and

4:55

that was before Hamilton came out. Right,

4:57

it was the holy text. Here's

5:00

how Ronald Reagan described the Constitution in

5:02

1987 on the 200th

5:05

anniversary of its passage. This

5:07

document that we honor today has always

5:09

been something more to us filled

5:12

with a deeper feeling than one of simple

5:14

admiration, a feeling one might

5:16

say more of reverence.

5:19

So Ari, what you're here to

5:22

do is take us from reverence

5:24

to reality. Yes, far from me

5:26

to reign on Ronald Reagan's parade

5:28

but the fact is that the

5:30

democratic institutions that the founding fathers

5:32

created weren't actually all that democratic

5:34

and there's this fundamental

5:37

contradiction that the country's

5:39

most important democratic document was

5:42

actually intended to make the country less

5:44

democratic. So

5:46

let's start this story in the action.

5:49

The summer of 1787, the Constitutional

5:52

Convention is going down in Philly.

5:55

There's a heat wave and the

5:57

delegates are cranky but they need

5:59

to come up with a way The answer? A question

6:01

that's been dodging them since the

6:03

end of the revolution. How do

6:06

we design a permanent government that

6:08

abides by majority rules, but at

6:10

the same time protect the rights

6:13

of minorities is a fair to

6:15

say. Yeah. So the founding fathers

6:17

in the seventies eighties are wrestling

6:20

with all of these difficult questions.

6:22

The country's only about a decade

6:24

old, the Declaration of Independence has

6:27

been signed, state constitutions have been

6:29

drafted, State governments have been set

6:31

up, but the country is really on

6:33

the brink of collapse. In the minds

6:36

of the founding fathers. V.

6:38

C Chaos. They feel like

6:40

the central government doesn't have

6:42

any power, and they're concerned,

6:44

particularly that the democratic institutions

6:46

that were created after the

6:48

Declaration of Independence are threatening

6:50

the rights of people like

6:52

themselves. They're worried that. Propertied

6:55

white man which is a

6:57

distinct minority in the country

6:59

are under siege from a

7:01

broader population. And so

7:03

they want to try to create

7:05

a strong central government. That

7:07

well both represent the people

7:10

more broadly, but make sure

7:12

that zero interest the interests

7:14

of the white male property

7:17

minority are also protested. And

7:22

in your book you pose a

7:24

broader questions: how much direct say

7:27

said the people have in electing

7:29

their leaders in the inner workings

7:31

of the doesn't? Yes. Because the

7:34

founding Fathers were very skeptical of

7:36

direct democracy, They sound like things

7:38

in Ancient Greece where the people

7:40

made all the decisions had led

7:43

to mob rule. So they're thinking,

7:45

how can we create a system

7:47

in which. Wiser,

7:50

More. established man make decisions for the

7:52

rest of the country they were trying

7:54

to figure out how do we create

7:57

a representative democracy where the representatives are

7:59

in some in some way from

8:01

the people themselves. So this

8:04

is the puzzle that the delegates

8:06

are trying to solve in Philadelphia

8:08

at the Constitutional Convention. And

8:10

the stakes couldn't be higher. I mean, Ronald

8:12

Reagan talked about it in that speech. He

8:15

quotes delegate Edmund Randolph from Virginia who

8:17

said this. From New Hampshire

8:19

to Georgia, are we not on

8:21

the eve of war which is

8:23

only prevented by the hopes from

8:26

this convention? Is

8:29

there ever a time in American history when

8:31

it doesn't feel like things are falling apart?

8:33

I think it's useful to

8:36

remember that all of the anxiety that

8:38

we feel today about democracy falling apart,

8:40

that's how the founding fathers felt back

8:42

in the 1780s. They

8:45

felt like the country was on the brink

8:47

of collapse, that the democratic experiment that America

8:49

had entered into after fighting

8:52

a war against England was

8:55

possibly over. And they felt

8:57

like they had to in many ways rescue

8:59

democracy from itself. So

9:02

the delegates are basically struggling to

9:04

set up rules for our major

9:06

democratic institutions, rules we pretty

9:08

much follow to this day. Let's

9:10

go back to Edmund Randolph. What

9:13

was his opening bid? So

9:15

Edmund Randolph is the governor of

9:17

Virginia. He's tall, he's handsome, he's

9:19

34 years old. He

9:22

is the former aide to George Washington.

9:24

And he introduces what is called the

9:26

Virginia Plan, which

9:28

formed the basis of the

9:30

constitution that would later be adopted.

9:33

And what Randolph does is he introduces

9:35

a plan for a new federal government.

9:38

The new national legislature will

9:40

pick the president and the

9:42

judiciary, and the Senate

9:44

will be chosen by state legislatures and

9:46

the House of Representatives, meaning

9:49

that the public will only elect

9:51

directly the House of Representatives. That

9:53

means that only one branch of

9:56

one House of the new

9:58

national government will be elected directly. by

10:00

the people. And that's a huge change

10:03

from how America was set up after

10:05

the Declaration of Independence, which says that

10:07

democracy should be based on the consent

10:09

of the governed. The institutions

10:11

that are laid out by Randolph insulate

10:14

the country's leadership from the consent of the

10:16

governed. So

10:19

it's decided that the House of Representatives

10:21

will be elected by the people. Why

10:24

not do something similar with the Senate? So

10:26

there's really two debates about

10:28

the Senate. The first is

10:30

should senators be directly elected

10:32

by the people? One

10:34

of the people who makes that argument

10:37

most forcefully is James Wilson, who's a

10:39

delegate from Pennsylvania, a close friend of

10:41

George Washington, one of the

10:43

most prominent lawyers in America. He's from Scotland.

10:46

He kind of has this great Scottish brogue,

10:48

so he's an intimidating character. The glasses are

10:50

down on his eyes. Kind of

10:52

what you think of when you think

10:55

of a stern founding father. He argues

10:57

that senators should be elected directly by

10:59

the people, but he loses that argument

11:01

very early on when the founders decide

11:04

that senators are going to be

11:06

nominated by state legislatures and chosen

11:08

by the House of Representatives. So

11:11

we already know senators aren't going to be

11:13

elected directly by the people. Then there's a

11:16

question of who should the Senate represent?

11:18

Should it be based on proportional representation or

11:20

should each state have the same number of

11:22

senators? And that leads to a much more

11:25

heated debate. So this gets

11:27

us back to the question of majority

11:29

versus minority rule. Small states were claiming

11:31

to be the vulnerable minority, right? Yes.

11:34

The small states were outnumbered and they

11:36

felt like their rights were going to

11:38

be trampled by the larger states. So

11:41

there's a major showdown on June 30th 1787. Gunning

11:46

Badford, who is the Attorney General of

11:48

Delaware, one of the smallest states in

11:50

the Union, he gets up and

11:52

he stares down the delegates from the

11:55

largest states and he says, I do

11:57

not gentlemen trust you. If you possess the

12:00

power, the abuse of it could not be

12:02

checked, and what would then prevent you from

12:04

exercising it to our destruction." Then

12:06

he issues this stunning ultimatum, and he

12:08

says, quote, the large states dare

12:10

not dissolve the confederation. If they do, the

12:13

small ones will find some foreign ally of

12:15

more honor and good faith who will take

12:17

them by the hand and do them justice.

12:20

So this is incredible. Bedford

12:22

and his allies in the small states

12:25

are threatening to leave the Union and

12:27

side with a foreign power, the very

12:29

thing America has rebelled against. So

12:33

in other words, he's threatening civil

12:35

war. Exactly. But

12:37

his extortionist tactics work. What

12:40

happens is the Senate is set up with

12:42

two votes for each state, no matter

12:45

how large or small the state. And

12:47

it becomes known as the great compromise.

12:50

But some historians have pointed out

12:52

more accurately it should be called

12:54

the great concession, the idea

12:56

that the Senate would represent each state

12:58

equally, no matter the population. And

13:01

now comes the issue of how to

13:03

elect the president of the United States.

13:05

And again, James Wilson plays a big

13:07

role, but in an unexpected way. So

13:10

Wilson is arguing first that the Senate

13:13

should be elected directly by the people.

13:15

He loses that fight. Then he argues

13:17

that the president should be directly elected

13:19

by the people. He loses that fight

13:21

too, because most of the founding fathers

13:23

believe that the public is too uninformed

13:26

to be able to directly elect the

13:28

president. So they want another system. And

13:31

Wilson proposes this complicated system that

13:33

is known as the electoral college

13:35

today, which is that

13:38

states will select electors who

13:40

will then elect the president. And

13:42

therefore, a small number of basically

13:45

elite white men will decide who

13:47

the president is. And

13:49

it gets worse from there, right? That's

13:51

right. Not only does the public not

13:54

elect the president directly, but Southern states

13:56

are given more representation through the three

13:58

fifths clause, which basically It basically says

14:00

that even though African Americans

14:02

are enslaved in the southern states,

14:05

southern states will get more representatives by

14:07

counting them as three-fifths of a person,

14:09

which gives southern states more power in

14:11

the House of Representatives and thereby gives

14:13

them more power in the electoral college

14:15

as well. So both the Senate and

14:18

the electoral college are biased

14:20

in favor of two distinct

14:22

minorities, the small states and

14:24

the slave states. The result

14:26

is that southern slave states

14:28

have an incredible amount

14:31

of power over the new

14:33

national government. Ten of the first

14:35

12 US presidents are slaveholders. Most

14:38

of the speakers of the House until the

14:40

Civil War are slaveholders, and 18 of the

14:43

first 31 Supreme Court

14:45

justices are slaveholders. And

14:48

of course, we're still stuck with the

14:50

Senate and the electoral college. How's

14:52

that playing out today? The amazing

14:54

thing is that those two institutions,

14:56

the Senate and the electoral college,

14:59

are biased still in favor of

15:01

whiter, more rural, more conservative states,

15:03

as opposed to larger, more diverse, more

15:06

progressive areas. And even as

15:08

those institutions have been reformed, so that

15:10

senators are now directly elected by the

15:12

people, so that electoral college electors now

15:14

generally follow the popular vote winner of

15:17

the state, they are still these anti-democratic

15:19

remnants of a very different

15:21

and far less democratic era. And

15:25

everything we just talked about, it all comes

15:27

down to this. You

15:31

can hear how unequal it is. That's

15:34

what most of the delegates wanted. The

15:37

system is working as designed. And

15:40

that leaves the design of our

15:42

democratic system vulnerable, even

15:44

in modern times, because it can

15:46

be exploited by politicians who want

15:48

to maximize minority rule for their

15:51

own gain. Mount

16:00

up everybody and ride to the sound of the gun.

16:06

Mount up and ride to the sound of

16:08

the gun. That was Pat

16:10

Buchanan, who ran for president in the 1990s. And

16:13

this was Donald Trump in 2020. After

16:16

this, we're going to walk down and I'll

16:18

be there with you. We're going to walk

16:20

down. We're

16:22

going to walk down. Anyone

16:24

you want, but I think right here, we're

16:26

going to walk down to the Capitol. Have

16:30

Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump pull

16:32

the levers of minority rule. That's

16:35

next on Reveal. Support

16:43

for Reveal comes from Odoo. What

16:46

is Odoo? Well, Odoo is a lot of things. Odoo

16:49

is award-winning management software. Odoo

16:51

is total control of your entire company

16:54

in one place. Odoo is

16:56

a suite of fully integrated applications

16:58

for CRM, accounting, sales, HR,

17:01

inventory, manufacturing, and everything in

17:03

between. Basically, Odoo is

17:05

what your business needs to

17:07

succeed. So if you're ready

17:10

to get more done in

17:12

less time, visit odoo.com/Reveal. That's

17:16

odoo.com/Reveal. Odoo.

17:19

Business management made simple. This

17:25

podcast is supported by Americans United for

17:27

Separation of Church and State. Americans

17:30

United defends your freedom to live

17:32

as yourself and believe as you

17:34

choose, so long as you don't

17:36

harm others. Core freedoms like abortion

17:38

rights, marriage equality, public education, and

17:40

even democracy itself, rest upon the

17:42

wall of separation between church and

17:45

state. A network of anti-democratic

17:47

groups are attacking these freedoms, seeking to

17:49

force us all to live by their

17:51

narrow beliefs. Americans United is

17:54

fighting back. Freedom without favor

17:56

and equality without exception. Learn

17:59

more about AU. work at

18:01

au.org/MJ. At

18:07

Radiolab we love nothing

18:09

more than nerding out

18:11

about science, neuroscience, chemistry,

18:13

but we do also like to

18:16

get into other kinds of stories.

18:18

Stories about policing or politics, country

18:20

music, hockey, sex, regardless

18:23

of whether we're looking at science or

18:25

not science we bring a rigorous curiosity

18:27

to get you the answers and hopefully

18:29

make you see the world anew. Radiolab

18:31

adventures on the edge of what we

18:34

think we know wherever you get

18:36

your podcasts. From

18:40

the Center for Investigative Reporting

18:42

and PRX this is Reveal.

18:44

I'm Al Ledson. We're doing

18:47

a deep dive with Mother Jones

18:49

reporter Ari Berman about his fascinating

18:51

new book called Minority Rule, The

18:53

Right-Wing Attack on the Will of

18:55

the People and the Fight to

18:57

Resist It. So Ari

18:59

you just gave us a backstage

19:01

look at the founding of the

19:03

United States and the drafting of

19:05

the Constitution. Yeah so the real

19:08

story of the founding in many

19:10

ways is how certain factions slanted

19:12

the rules of the game to

19:14

keep themselves in power. We're talking

19:16

slaveholders, white male property owners,

19:19

and small states over large states.

19:21

One of the things your book

19:24

Minority Rule does well is connect

19:26

America's origins to what's happening right

19:28

now. You take us from the

19:30

Constitutional Convention to Donald Trump, a

19:32

dude who's benefited like crazy from

19:35

Minority Rule, right? That's right. Trump

19:37

is certainly an accelerant to the

19:39

crazy undemocratic nature of American politics

19:41

but he's also a product of

19:43

a deeply undemocratic system. In

19:45

2016 he won the electoral college despite

19:48

losing the popular vote by nearly three

19:50

million votes. Then in 2020 he

19:53

lost the popular vote by seven million

19:55

votes but came just 44,000 votes away

19:57

from winning the electoral college. Trump

20:00

is a product of minority rule. You

20:02

also show how Trump is not

20:05

the first modern politician to use

20:07

minority rule to preserve the purity

20:09

of the real America. Definitely not.

20:12

There is a really important transitional figure

20:14

in the 1990s who was

20:16

a key player in the Republican Party, and

20:18

his name is Pat Buchanan. I

20:21

remember Pat Buchanan in

20:24

my memory of watching him as a

20:26

child on TV. He was kind of

20:28

a firebrand Republican. Today we call for

20:30

a new patriotism, where

20:33

Americans begin to put the needs of

20:35

Americans first. What was

20:37

he for and against? He was basically

20:39

for the rights of white Christian America,

20:42

and he was essentially against the

20:45

rights of everyone else. He didn't

20:47

like the civil rights movement, and

20:49

he didn't like demographic change, and

20:52

he felt like white Christian America

20:54

was under siege. I mean, basically

20:56

he is the progenitor of a

20:59

lot of our politics today. That's

21:01

right. Now, before Buchanan, Republican politicians

21:03

like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan

21:06

would use coded language to basically

21:08

say white Americans need to keep

21:10

wielding the majority of power in

21:13

this country. But then Pat Buchanan

21:15

comes along, and he just says the quiet

21:17

part out loud. Buchanan

21:22

was a young speechwriter for Richard Nixon

21:25

in the 1960s, and he helps conceive

21:27

of the Southern strategy. The idea is

21:29

that you're going to move conservative Southern

21:31

white people away from the Democratic Party,

21:34

where they had long identified it, into

21:36

the Republican Party. You're going to do

21:38

that through coded appeals on

21:40

race. You're going to talk about things

21:42

like busing and affirmative action and quotas,

21:45

things like that. But

21:47

Buchanan just comes right out and says, white

21:49

America is under siege. There's no coding about

21:51

it. Yeah, and so this

21:54

is kind of a turning point, because now

21:56

that he's taken out all the polite niceties

21:58

that covered it all up before, Therefore, it

22:00

begins to reset the conservative agenda

22:03

and change the way conservatives talk. It

22:05

does because what Buchanan is basically

22:07

saying is that the white

22:09

majority that he helped build for people

22:12

like Nixon and Reagan is

22:14

going to disappear. The 1990

22:16

census, which coincides with Buchanan's first

22:18

presidential campaign, says that white people

22:20

will one day be a minority

22:22

in the country. And Buchanan

22:25

starts warning about this. He says there's

22:27

going to be this majority-minority future in

22:29

which white people are going to be

22:31

the minority. And if white

22:33

people don't do something about it, these demographic

22:36

changes are going to make the Republican Party

22:38

extinct because the Republican Party

22:40

is so identified with white voters.

22:42

And he justifies this by saying,

22:45

this is the country the framers

22:47

of the Constitution had in

22:49

mind. We're going to make America the

22:51

constitutional republic again of our founding fathers'

22:54

dreams. I

22:57

believe those of us in this room, we are

22:59

the true sons and daughters. I

23:01

believe of the founding fathers. We are

23:03

their legitimate and rightful heirs. Buchanan

23:07

describes his supporters as the

23:09

true sons and daughters of

23:11

the American Revolution. And

23:13

he says the founding fathers didn't

23:15

believe in democracy. They didn't believe

23:17

in equality. They didn't believe in

23:20

diversity. So if the founders didn't

23:22

believe in any of these things, why should we

23:24

believe in them either? That basically

23:26

democracy, diversity, equality, all of those

23:29

things are actually highly overrated. What

23:31

matters is protecting the white majority

23:33

that's becoming a minority at all

23:35

costs. So

23:41

where does Pap Buchanan come from? In

23:44

the early 90s, I was just about

23:47

to graduate high school. I'm seeing this

23:49

guy everywhere. And I had this really

23:52

distinct memory of watching him

23:55

on CNN and just knowing

23:57

deep down inside that this

23:59

man does not like me.

24:02

Buchanan is kind of like Fox

24:04

News before Fox News. He rides being

24:07

a conservative pundit into a

24:09

platform to run for president

24:11

and he challenges the Republican

24:13

establishment. He runs against a

24:15

sitting Republican president, George H.W.

24:17

Bush. And even though he

24:19

doesn't win any states, the

24:21

fact that he gets three

24:23

million votes running against George

24:26

H.W. Bush means he's invited

24:28

to give this keynote speech at the

24:30

Republican convention, which elevates his profile even

24:32

more. No

24:36

way, my friends. The

24:39

American people are

24:41

not going to go back to the discredited

24:43

liberalism of the 1960s and the failed liberalism

24:45

of the 1970s, no matter how slick the

24:50

package in 1992. What do you mean

24:57

by that? It means he's against

24:59

all kinds of things. Radical

25:01

feminism, abortion on

25:03

demand, a litmus

25:05

test for the Supreme Court, homosexual

25:08

rights, discrimination against

25:10

religious schools, women

25:12

in combat units. That's

25:15

change all right, but

25:17

that's not the kind of change America

25:19

needs. It's not the kind

25:21

of change America wants. And

25:23

it's not the kind of change we can

25:25

abide in a nation we still call

25:28

God's country. And

25:34

in speeches and interviews, he's also very

25:36

anti-immigrant. You said you want a five-year

25:38

moratorium on legal immigration. Still be the

25:40

most generous country in the world, but

25:42

it would give us time to assimilate

25:44

and Americanize the 30 million who have

25:46

come here in recent decades. Less immigration.

25:48

We need work. And I remember his

25:51

stances on race. Not good.

25:53

So Buchanan, not surprisingly, is very opposed

25:55

to the Civil Rights movement in the

25:57

1960s. He goes to the South during

25:59

his... his presidential campaign in the 90s

26:02

and he campaigns against things like the

26:04

Voting Rights Act. So

26:06

the Voting Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination

26:08

in voting. I mean, it was a

26:10

landmark piece of legislation. It

26:12

struck down obstacles to voting like poll

26:14

taxes and literacy tests that had been

26:17

used to keep people of color from

26:19

the polls. Buchanan called it,

26:21

quote, an act of regional discrimination against

26:23

the South. But a lot

26:25

of Republicans had spoken out against the Voting Rights Act.

26:28

What makes Buchanan unique is he mixes antipathy toward

26:30

the civil rights movement of the 1960s with

26:34

antipathy towards non-white immigration. So

26:36

he's basically saying it's not black, it's not

26:38

Hispanic, it's all of the minority

26:41

groups combined that are going to drive

26:43

white voters into the minority and make

26:45

the Republican Party extinct. So

26:47

four years later in 1996, he

26:49

runs in the Republican primary again.

26:52

What happens? He shocks the world

26:54

by winning the New Hampshire Republican primary.

26:57

And then he breaks into song. At

27:05

least if you call this thing. Buchanan's

27:19

win dramatically shakes up the race and

27:21

turns him into a serious contender for

27:23

the White House. Four

27:25

years ago, I stood in

27:27

this very room when we

27:29

made history and we

27:31

have made history again tonight, me friends,

27:34

here in New Hampshire. Buchanan

27:40

speaks in a way that

27:42

sounds very familiar to modern

27:44

conservatism today. Conservatism

27:47

that gives voice to the voiceless, that speaks

27:49

up for the right to life of the

27:51

innocent unborn. And

27:54

He's framing issues in an Us versus

27:56

them way that is very trampy. Victory

28:01

been a good Men and women of Middle

28:03

America cannot understand. Why? They're

28:05

his desk this in Washington and silence

28:07

about the fact the standard of living

28:09

or working men and women and middle

28:12

class have been stagnating for profits have

28:14

been soaring. They call me names south

28:16

Seas, mixing populism with racism and nativism.

28:19

He says in Nineteen Ninety Two that

28:21

there should be a wall along the

28:23

Us Mexico border. And. He's

28:25

making campaign stops at Confederate

28:27

monuments like Stone Mountain in

28:29

Georgia where he's questioned by

28:31

a reporter new design about

28:33

the photos are feminine Confederate

28:35

monuments. He probably and racial politics home

28:37

from on. This is a just. This

28:40

is of the monument for the entire

28:42

south some reason jackson this a landmark

28:44

in a movie Ikea Everybody visits class.

28:46

There's a wonderful place. Today is due

28:49

to. For

28:53

a brief moment and looks like you

28:55

can and to go all the way

28:57

to become the actual Republican presidential nominee.

28:59

and the zinc is interesting to me

29:01

about although this is that their parts

29:03

of it's that. She's. Not wrong

29:05

about like are working men and women

29:08

and middle class They are stagnating while

29:10

profits sort are soaring. I mean we're

29:12

still seeing that today. They I guess

29:14

that the issue obviously is that is

29:17

mixing you and racism as sentence and

29:19

the way he talks about like working

29:21

men and women is late So immigrants

29:23

in black people learn included mess So

29:26

he's taking a truth that as they

29:28

give you are in American pie and

29:30

you are middle class person you're you're

29:32

feeling this type of pressures the deniers

29:35

adding. In this racist ideology,

29:37

spending gives people somebody to

29:39

be angry at. So

29:42

what happens to him after that? The

29:45

Republican establishment turns on Buchanan.

29:47

Bob Dole who becomes than

29:49

nominee and Nineteen Ninety Six

29:51

blocks Buchanan from speaking at

29:53

the Republican convention towards well

29:55

a very famous Washington Post

29:57

columnist cause him pitchfork Power.

30:00

And unlike in Nineteen Ninety Two,

30:02

when the Republican party in braces Buchanan

30:04

as I'm now, they want to

30:06

send him into the political wilderness. Four

30:09

years later, critics accuse Buchanan of flirting

30:11

with racism, anti semitism, xena phobia, and

30:13

worse. And one of those critics is

30:16

none other than Donald Trump. Trump said

30:18

he agreed with them. He said the

30:20

pin was only drawing support from

30:22

a staunch like wacko vote. On

30:25

slow days, Trump wrote he tax

30:27

gaze immigrants, welfare recipients, even Zulus.

30:29

He doesn't like the blacks, He

30:31

doesn't like the gays. I I

30:33

sky is just incredible that anybody

30:36

could embrace this guy. The

30:38

blacks versus the gays. I

30:41

mean, even though he is

30:43

against Buchanan in this instance,

30:45

the seeds of who Trump

30:47

is today was clearly there.

30:50

That's right. And the irony

30:52

here is that after Republican

30:54

sidelines be ten and his

30:56

views became even more extreme.

30:58

But now lot of those

31:00

extreme views and his aggressive

31:02

tone or animating. Donald. Trump

31:05

and his market movements. so. First.

31:07

Trump criticizes be canon. Then.

31:10

Later. He. Sounds just like him

31:12

to opposing the blood of our country.

31:14

That's what they've done. They poisoned mental

31:16

institutions and bruises all over the world

31:19

that just in South America, not just

31:21

the three or four countries that we

31:23

think about, but all over the world.

31:25

When. Trump talks about immigration. He often

31:28

focuses on the decline of white power.

31:30

At. It's heart that message is about

31:33

minority rule. Is the idea

31:35

that some perspectives some citizens count

31:37

more. And you don't have

31:39

to look too far to see Trump

31:42

implying that as a political strategy throughout

31:44

his campaigns for President, Take Twenty Twenty.

31:46

Just two days after the election, Trump

31:48

was calling to quote Stop The Counts.

31:54

And that phrase was then picked up

31:56

by his supporters, including crowds outside Detroit's

31:59

Tcf Center. They banged on the

32:01

glass, trying to stop the people inside

32:03

from counting the ballots in

32:05

that mostly black, mostly Democratic

32:07

city. Counting

32:15

every legally cast ballot, every

32:18

vote, that is the foundational

32:20

principle of our democracy. And

32:22

Trump has helped popularize the idea

32:25

to his own benefit that minority

32:27

rule matters more. And

32:29

as I write in my book, the Constitution

32:31

leaves us in many ways vulnerable

32:34

to this undemocratic system. Are

32:37

we just stuck? Is there nothing

32:40

we can do to make the system at

32:42

least a little more democratic? So where change

32:45

is most possible right now is at the

32:47

state level. And I found

32:49

an activist in Michigan who's fighting back

32:52

and winning. Coming

32:56

up, that activist, Katie Fahey, will join

32:58

us to share her real David versus

33:00

the life story. That's next

33:02

on Reveal. From

33:12

the Center for Investigative Reporting in

33:14

PRX, this is Reveal. I'm

33:16

Al Ledson. I'm speaking with

33:18

author Ari Berman about how our

33:21

constitutional system was designed to help

33:23

some Americans more than others. His

33:25

new book is about minority rule. It's

33:28

one of those things that once you start

33:30

looking for it, you realize it's kind of

33:32

everywhere. The US Senate. Yep,

33:37

a product of minority rule. So

33:39

is the presidency because of the Electoral College.

33:42

And by proxy, so is the

33:44

Supreme Court because presidents nominate Supreme

33:47

Court justices and the Senate confirms

33:49

them. It can feel a

33:51

little, well, less than democratic.

33:54

But Ari, you write about a bright spot in

33:56

your book. I'm thinking of the story of Katie

33:59

Fahey, a grassroots activist. activists who woke up one

34:01

morning and basically said, you know what, I'm

34:03

going to do something about how politicians

34:05

stack elections in my state. She

34:08

was going to take on the problem of

34:10

gerrymandering. So

34:13

remember, gerrymandering is the practice of

34:15

manipulating election districts in a way

34:17

that unfairly favors one party or

34:19

community over another. And

34:21

Republicans had been using it in Katie's

34:23

home state of Michigan to hold a

34:26

majority of power despite winning a minority

34:28

of votes. A Republican operative

34:30

said the goal was to, quote, cram

34:32

all of the dem garbage into

34:35

as few seats as possible. Katie

34:37

thought that was wrong in principle and that it

34:39

was leading to one sided laws. So she decided

34:41

to do something about it. Her

34:44

story is surprising, but also

34:46

instructive. So you sat

34:49

down with her and the story begins

34:51

November 10th, 2016, two days after the

34:53

election. In

34:56

2016, the election results once again

34:59

did not align with how the

35:01

people of Michigan had actually voted.

35:04

And it was extremely frustrating

35:07

and infuriating. The Democrats had

35:09

won a slim majority

35:11

of the vote. Yet somehow

35:14

the statehouse and state senate

35:16

were leaning extremely far to

35:19

the right. And Michigan

35:21

is a very purple state. About half of us

35:23

vote for Democrats, about half of us vote for

35:25

Republicans. So you would have assumed, OK, we've

35:27

got about 50 50 with a

35:29

slim majority Democrats. But this basically meant

35:31

that Republicans didn't even have to talk

35:33

to any Democrats at the state level

35:35

in order to try and pass policies. OK,

35:39

so this is a classic case of

35:41

gerrymandering. The shape of the election district

35:43

maps, not the total number of votes,

35:46

gave Republicans a total control of

35:48

the Michigan Statehouse. Even

35:51

when Republicans are getting less votes

35:53

than Democrats at the state level,

35:55

they're holding huge majorities in the

35:57

legislature. That's a textbook

35:59

example. example of minority rule. So

36:02

if Katie is going to change that, she needs

36:05

to revise her state's constitution by a ballot

36:07

initiative. But her regular job had

36:09

nothing to do with politics. I worked for

36:11

the Michigan Recycling Coalition and I

36:13

had an hour-long commute to work.

36:15

And before going to work, I

36:18

hopped on social media, quite a

36:20

millennial, and just made a Facebook

36:22

post that said like, hey, I think we should

36:24

end gerrymandering in Michigan. If you want to help,

36:26

let me know. Smiley face. Katie

36:28

says she got a ton of responses. By

36:30

the time I got to work and checked it at

36:33

lunchtime, there were a bunch of

36:35

private messages from people I had no idea

36:37

who they were all saying things like, hey,

36:39

I've cared about gerrymandering for such a long

36:41

time. Let me know how I can help.

36:44

I'm so glad you're doing something about this.

36:46

Like, let's do it. It was very shocking.

36:48

I was super excited, but also then it

36:50

kind of sank in like, oh, no, we

36:52

have to figure out how to do

36:55

something about gerrymandering now. Katie

37:00

had no idea where to start, so

37:02

she says she turned to a trusted

37:05

friend, Google. You know, how

37:07

do you end gerrymandering in Michigan?

37:09

And found a website that said

37:11

that basically in Michigan, we have

37:14

this thing called the citizen-led ballot

37:16

initiative process, meaning that

37:18

everyday citizens could bypass the legislature

37:21

by coming together, writing constitutional

37:24

language, writing our own law. Then we had

37:26

to gather a bunch of signatures, and

37:28

then we could put it up to the

37:30

people of Michigan to vote directly on changing

37:32

the law. So we could actually change the

37:34

redistricting process through changing the laws about

37:37

redistricting. We had to gather

37:39

for the 2018 ballot, 315,654 registered Michigan voter

37:41

signatures in 180 days.

37:49

Okay, so now she knows what it's going to

37:51

take. More than 315,600 signatures. And this is

37:56

the fascinating thing, Al. She's 27 years old.

38:00

Never done any kind of political organizing,

38:02

so I basically said to her to

38:04

be able to do this, you had

38:06

to start a movement. Did you think

38:08

I was possible? I absolutely. Did not

38:10

think that we will start a

38:12

movement or that everyday people could

38:15

have such a monumental impact on

38:17

this. I. Figure that there is

38:19

probably some really great organizations. Maybe they

38:21

could use some more volunteers. Or maybe

38:23

we'd have to like or write letters

38:25

to our congressmen. Sell when we looked

38:28

at that fig three Hundred and Fifteen

38:30

thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty Four number.

38:32

Okay, can we even do that? Traditionally

38:34

it what we had learned was that.

38:37

A lot of campaigns pay for people to

38:39

gather signatures. Well, we didn't even have a

38:41

bank account for this effort, so we kinda

38:43

paid millions of dollars to drag out of

38:45

the signatures. But we had seen that this

38:47

is an issue that really resonated with the

38:50

people of Michigan. There

38:53

were some big questions they had to figure out. What

38:56

are the people of Michigan want their election

38:58

district to look like and house? Or the

39:00

process work to make those changes? Tt

39:03

in her group decided less just

39:05

ask the voters directly. And.

39:07

So we organize the town halls. Thirty

39:09

three town halls and thirty three days

39:11

where we went and had conversations with

39:13

people for of all political stripes. About.

39:16

What? Is redistricting was gerrymandering. What does it

39:18

look like a mess again? And how would

39:20

we wanted to look if we were gonna

39:23

do something different? And

39:25

by going to be born actually asking

39:27

their opinion and inviting them into the

39:29

political process, we saw they didn't want

39:31

to stop with just having their input.

39:33

Heard they were willing to go and

39:35

talk to their neighbors about redistricting. So

39:37

we basically tried to divide up that

39:39

big number and get a couple thousand

39:41

people to gather signatures. yell it's you

39:43

can gather seventeen signatures a week for

39:45

eight weeks. We think we can do

39:47

this and we slowly started to see

39:49

that people were willing to at least

39:51

do something. some people that are lot

39:53

more and some. People that Ls. Forget.

39:57

Now sees all in she, sending waves

39:59

of violence. There's into the field

40:01

to collect signatures. Did see. Talk about

40:03

what motivated her to make this her

40:05

issue. She did. She said

40:08

at the heart of the problem was

40:10

the idea that Michigan politics was out

40:12

of step for the people of Miss

40:14

Again actually wanted remember, it's a purple

40:16

state right? But. Tt said that

40:19

both Democrats and Republicans had used

40:21

gerrymandering to gain these lopsided majority's

40:23

and then pass policies that see

40:26

thought were kind of extreme. I

40:28

just kept seeing this pattern of ignoring

40:30

the will of the voters. I was

40:33

in their recycling industry and there was

40:35

a local city that wanted to say

40:37

our grocery store i can't give out

40:39

plastic bags and their legislature the day

40:41

before hearing this meeting made it illegal

40:44

to ban plastic bag. So they did

40:46

a ban on banning plastic bag is

40:48

such an overreach assault. Ridiculous. Like it

40:50

wasn't a big deal to now remove

40:52

this right. From ten million people to

40:54

be able to actually govern themselves. Sere.

40:59

So if you're a ruthless politician in

41:01

a gerrymandered districts, you're not going. It's

41:04

hear about. Would voters from the other

41:06

side think because you know your reelection

41:08

is safe. That's. Correct these

41:11

tortured maps insert one party rule

41:13

in Michigan and I asked tedious

41:15

as an example of how was

41:17

playing out. Oh. So many Ah

41:19

assists one district that stand out

41:21

to me of being. Really gerrymandered

41:24

was. Actually right near my house in

41:26

the district that I went to college

41:28

and so there's about six cases and

41:30

and street you had. three different city

41:32

has district so I am like not

41:34

a super athletic percent I decided I'm

41:36

gonna try and run this and see

41:38

how long as they did. admit it

41:40

took me less than one minutes to

41:42

run through three house districts and we

41:44

ended up talking to people on that

41:46

street and they said candidates never know

41:48

who they actually represented. The streets are

41:50

voting place where we that a vote

41:52

changes all the time we get mail.

41:54

Them all the candidates. And also

41:56

whenever they try to advocate for a team's

41:59

nobody wants to. The attention to this

42:01

community because it's divided into three different

42:03

districts said they're fairly represented three times.

42:06

So. That's an everyday example of the

42:08

problems caused by gerrymandering. A

42:10

tragic example was the water crisis

42:12

in Flint. What? A lot of

42:15

people don't realize is that this Flint Water Crisis

42:17

actually has it's roots and. Gerrymandering,

42:19

Flint. Michigan is a majority black

42:22

city and Twenty Fourteen and Emergency

42:24

Manager switch their city onto a

42:26

water supply that corroded their pipes

42:28

and least led into the water.

42:31

Sell their is this line Michigan

42:33

called the Emergency Manager Law which

42:36

basically at a local city with

42:38

in financial trouble meant that's you

42:40

that your financial responsibilities taken away

42:42

and a manager. Got pointed to at.

42:46

A lot of people in Michigan felt

42:48

like the targeted communities of color and

42:50

the people of Michigan actually decided to

42:52

use the petition process to repeal that

42:54

law and overwhelmingly voted to say hey,

42:57

we want to get rid of the

42:59

for. Something tells me that

43:01

didn't solve the problem. Nope. One

43:03

of the very. First things the legislature

43:05

day it was find a loophole that

43:07

will paul as if they can start

43:09

playing a piece of money to legislate

43:11

sense citizens. Can it be? Tell it.

43:14

So Henri limited the street. The

43:17

Michigan legislature found a way to

43:19

nullify the people's votes to get

43:21

rid of the Emergency Manager law.

43:24

It. Was crazy. The. Legislature which

43:26

again is super gerrymandered. Not.

43:29

Only reinstated that emergency manager

43:31

law. They took it one

43:33

step further and basically made

43:35

it impossible to repeal any

43:37

law the legislature passed. No

43:40

matter how unpopular was with the voters.

43:42

Leader and Slant kill his into

43:45

financial crisis and an emergency manager

43:47

gets put into place to then

43:49

decides for a financial reason to.

43:51

Switch to the water source for the city

43:53

a plant which then leads to the water

43:55

crisis. and all that

43:58

affected so many laws Now,

44:00

I want to get back to Katie's story. She

44:03

and her group of volunteers are

44:05

collecting signatures to force a referendum

44:07

on gerrymandering reform onto the ballot.

44:10

So how's that going? Remember they had only

44:12

180 days to get 315,654 signatures on the ballot. Everybody

44:21

told us it was impossible to

44:23

do, but we were everywhere. We

44:25

were in cow pastures, parades. We

44:27

found the busiest rest steps in

44:29

Michigan. We set up tables outside

44:31

of those rest steps to talk to you about

44:33

how do we add gerrymandering. It was definitely

44:35

a machine, but a volunteer powered machine.

44:41

It turns out they gathered far more than they

44:43

needed, and they did it in just 110 days. A

44:47

group of activists against partisan gerrymandering

44:49

are expected to turn in about

44:51

400,000 signatures by

44:54

the end of the year. Right now

44:56

the legislature and governor control the redistricting

44:58

process, but a proposed amendment would allow

45:01

a commission of citizens to control it

45:03

instead. A lot

45:05

of people at those town halls said

45:07

that's what they wanted, an independent citizens

45:10

redistricting commission. They didn't

45:12

want politicians. They didn't want

45:14

lobbyists on this commission. They

45:16

wanted representation from Democrats, Republicans

45:18

and independents. And they also

45:21

wanted the diversity of Michiganders,

45:23

age, race, gender, where people

45:25

lived. The commission consisted

45:27

of four Democrats, four Republicans and

45:29

five independent or third party voters.

45:32

The rules basically said that we

45:34

wanted to keep communities together and

45:36

that those communities could define what

45:38

those geographic boundaries are. It

45:41

made gerrymandering illegal. It said you

45:43

are not able to provide a

45:46

disproportionate advantage to any party or

45:48

individual candidate. Who's opposed

45:50

to the initiative? The usual suspects.

45:53

It was the Michigan Freedom Fund, which

45:55

is related to the DeVos family. Betsy

45:58

DeVos was the secretary of education. education

46:00

under Donald Trump. We had the

46:02

statewide Chamber of Commerce as well

46:05

as the Republican Party itself. So

46:09

now it's election night 2018. The referendum

46:11

is on the ballot. How'd it go?

46:14

I'll give you a hint. I watched a

46:16

video of Katie that night and she was

46:18

holding a glass of champagne in each hand.

46:21

Someone had left their glass of champagne up on

46:23

the podium and then I had my own. All

46:25

right, just for the record. So

46:28

on election night, we were still campaigning all

46:30

the way up until eight

46:33

o'clock when those polls closed. And so

46:35

we had this big, we

46:37

were hoping party. I guess either way we would

46:39

have celebrated all of the hard work we had

46:41

done, but there were probably several hundred of our

46:44

volunteers there. They

46:46

won in a landslide. Michigan

46:48

yesterday voting in favor of proposal two,

46:50

which will change the way the state's

46:53

political lines are drawn. Katie

46:55

Fahey from Caledonia started this whole

46:57

thing almost exactly two years ago. And

47:00

now her organization is seeing it pay

47:02

off. So the passage of the

47:04

initiative with 61 percent of the

47:06

vote sent a very clear message

47:08

that the people of Michigan wanted

47:10

change and wanted accountability. And

47:13

the other really exciting thing was Michigan

47:15

wasn't the only state with redistricting on

47:17

the ballot that night. There were four other

47:19

states that we were also watching to see,

47:21

you know, was this really a nationwide movement? And

47:23

it turns out that it was. OK,

47:26

so let's skip ahead to whether

47:28

it worked. Did the referendum change

47:31

Michigan's election system in the ways

47:33

Katie hoped it would? Here's what

47:35

she said. Twenty twenty two

47:37

was the first year that

47:39

our independent citizens redistricting commission had created new

47:41

maps and they were going to be put

47:43

to the test. Would they work? Would they

47:45

have partisan bias? What does this look like?

47:48

Can you actually improve democracy and have it

47:50

work how you intend it to? The

47:54

impact of the new voting maps was stunning.

47:57

This time, Michigan got what it voted for.

48:00

fair representation in the State House,

48:02

State Senate, and in Congress. Support

50:00

for Reveals provided by the Reeva

50:02

and David Logan Foundation, the Ford

50:04

Foundation, the John D. and Catherine

50:06

T. McArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan

50:08

Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson

50:11

Foundation, the Park Foundation, and the

50:13

Hellman Foundation. Reveal is a

50:15

co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting

50:17

and PRX. I'm Al Ledson,

50:19

and remember, there is always more to

50:21

the story. From

50:32

PRX.