Presidential election season has officially begun here in the United States, and 30 million votes have already been cast. This number is on pace to surpass the 155 million votes cast in the 2020 election. It’s clear that Americans are eager to have their votes counted for the candidate of their choice at least once every four years.
When it comes to the nation’s highest seats, American presidential elections are designed differently than other elections in our country. In this case, a specific voting method is used to determine the winner: the Electoral College. Rather than using the popular vote to decide the winner of an election, a group of electors has the final say.
It is ironic that this method is used to elect a president, especially given that the United States has always extolled the power of meritocracy, extolled “one person, one vote,” and has an unwavering belief in democracy. . Under this system, the best of the crop always rises to the top. But is that actually true?
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 27: Dr. Phil speaks at a campaign rally for Republican President…(+) candidate and former President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2024 in New York City. . President Trump will appear in New York City with a guest speaker list that includes his running mate, Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Tesla CEO Elon Musk, UFC CEO Dana White, and Mr. House. concluded a weekend of campaigning. Speaker Mike Johnson and others nine days before Election Day. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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This week, a clip of Dr. Phil’s speech at a Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City went viral online. “This country was built on hard work, added value, and talent, not equal outcomes or DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion),” he said in the video. This country was built on hard work. ” The crowd cheered wildly at his statement.
Given the tone, I think his comments were intended to lean into the narrative that hard work, not race, gender, or sexual orientation, is the primary driver of success. This concept emphasizes that America was built this way through meritocracy and dedicated labor, not through concessions to lower standards and government policies intended to give equal outcomes to the undeserved. It’s implied.
But Dr. Phil is wrong. Looking back at U.S. history, many programs, police forces, and laws have been structured to reward individuals based on identity rather than hard work. Or as the NAACP puts it, “This country was absolutely built on the hard work of Dr. Phil… because of Black, brown people, and immigrants from all over the world!” Many of them do. These are the people who were forced to do this! slavery. Let me know when you’re ready to tell the full story. ”
Learn how DEI shapes our voting system, how the Electoral College was designed, and how its creation is very similar or identical to today’s DEI programs. Let’s take a look.
383436 02: Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin (center) carries a ballot box… (+) Containing Massachusetts’ 12 electoral votes for Vice President Al Gore. During the election period, it will be led by Sergeant Michael Rea (right). Electoral College votes held at the State Capitol in Boston on December 18, 2000. (Pool Photo/Getty Images)
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The electorate system was designed and introduced as a way to level the playing field for groups of Americans who would never be able to win or access power without it. Sounds a lot like DEI today. Except it was southern white men who benefited from the electorate.
A majority of delegates from slave-owning Southern states opposed the popular vote, believing it would disadvantage them. The populations of the North and South were about the same, but one-third of the people living in the South were slaves. They certainly weren’t allowed to vote because they weren’t even recognized as human beings because of their race.
This disparity cost the South its power, and they realized that they would never be able to use their voice and influence in the democracy they were actively responsible for creating. Therefore, they lobbied for a new system. A more controlled and indirect method of selecting the president. One provides a compromise between two separate systems: 1) electing the president by a vote of Congress and 2) electing the president by a popular vote of eligible citizens.
result? Electoral College.
Once this system was agreed upon, the Founding Fathers had to figure out a way to ensure that their privileges and power were not given to black Americans. In 1787, the Constitutional Convention proposed the “Three-Fifths Compromise,” which would allow Southern slaves to be counted as three-fifths of whites in taxation and representation in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College.
Black people have lost (among many other things) two-fifths of themselves: power, identity, dignity, voice, presence, and the opportunity to live the American Dream, which is written into the Constitution.
Our founding fathers agreed that this was the best way forward. At the time, future President James Madison went on record as to why direct popular vote elections for the highest office did not work.
“But there was one serious problem with instant national choice: suffrage was much more widespread in the North than in Southern states, and the latter could affect blacks’ scores in elections. The change of electors seemed to have avoided this difficulty and to have led to the least opposition on the whole.
Is the Electoral College our nation’s oldest and most influential fairness program?
I would like to suggest that the Electoral College is a DEI program designed to coerce rather than grant control, as these past fairness programs today qualify as DEI efforts.
We are currently discussing DEI. The idea is to actively provide opportunities, rather than guarantees, a level playing field for groups of Americans who have historically been underserved in American businesses and universities. But the Electoral College appears to be doing just that.
Harper’s Weekly political cartoon by American cartoonist Thomas Nast, March 1867. This painting depicts an African-American man casting his vote into a ballot box as Andrew Jackson and others look on angrily during the Georgetown election. (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
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Because the electoral process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution, a constitutional amendment would need to be passed to change it. Over the years, more than 700 lawsuits have been filed to change or modify the electoral system and move to a modernized “one person, one vote” system for counting popular votes. Of all the elements of the Constitution, this feature is the most difficult. However, nothing has been passed by Congress and sent to the United States to be ratified as a constitutional amendment.
Few media outlets on either side of the political spectrum take the time to explain how much race and slavery contributed to the creation of the electoral college. These origins are simply ignored.
In corporate America today, meritocracy is in many ways equivalent to the concept of a popular vote. And in many ways, the design and development of the Electoral College works similar to the way DEI programs are designed to work today.
To create a fair system in a historically inequitable environment, concessions must be designed to ensure fair outcomes. Sports leagues achieve this goal through revenue sharing. The NFL, NBA, and others ensure fairness by supporting teams in need of support in order to improve the quality of the league as a whole. Similarly, the worst team at the end of the season becomes the first pick in the following year’s draft. Or, after a team scores a touchdown or basket, the other team gets the ball back.
This is called competitive balance, and while it may seem fine in some situations and cases, it’s not the case when it comes to DEI programs.
The South’s built-in advantage, not allowing slaveholders to vote, and the bonus electoral votes that came with owning slaves, made the difference in the election outcome. Slave owner Thomas Jefferson narrowly defeated his opponent, incumbent president and abolitionist John Adams. Southern slaveholders and their allies won the White House until Abraham Lincoln won in 1860. Shortly after Lincoln’s death, the Reconstruction Era began, with the salvation of the Old South and the birth of Jim Crow regimes, grown by winners of the Electoral College rather than the popular vote.
More than two centuries later, the Electoral College continues to negatively impact black voters. Five of the six states with at least 25 percent of the population are black have turned solidly red in recent presidential elections. Three of those states haven’t voted Democratic in more than 40 years. California has the highest number of registered Republicans of any state, more than 22 million, but that won’t be known on election day. Under the Electoral College, votes are simply and quietly sunk. Not to mention, in 2016, Hillary Clinton had the highest popular vote total in history at the time, but still lost.
Many of the same people who are frustrated by the inequities of current DEI programs do not seem to realize that they are where they are today because their ancestors were beneficiaries of DEI programs.
In 2025, no matter who becomes president, I would like to propose a new compromise solution. Either allow DEI in corporate settings to achieve its purpose: leveling the playing field for historically disadvantaged populations, or abolish DEI. The Electoral College is America’s largest and oldest DEI program.
What is fair to some must be fair to all.
