A World that Almost Wasn’t

Many people today oppose the Republican Party, now led by a radical and white nationalist minority that subscribes to a warped form of Christianity. This minority has not only gained control of the Party but has also taken over the government, creating a sense of helplessness among the majority. The sad part is that this minority achieved this feat using means that were entirely legal under the Constitution.

It’s sobering to think that it almost didn’t happen. Decades ago, a majority of politicians — Democrats and Republicans — anticipated this catastrophe and tried to prevent it. Had they succeeded, we would be living in a completely different world today.

Here’s what happened:

The 1968 election raised alarm bells in Congress. With only 43.4% of the popular vote, Richard Nixon won the presidency. Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey closely followed with 42.7%. Filling the gap was George Wallace, running as an independent Southern segregationist. He claimed 13.5% of the vote, earning 46 electoral votes. Wallace’s regional support created the real possibility that no candidate would reach the needed 270 electoral votes, which could have sent the result to the House of Representatives, where each state has one vote, regardless of population. The old electoral system, combined with political polarization, nearly caused a constitutional crisis.

In response to this near-crisis, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana and Representative Emanuel Celler of New York proposed a constitutional amendment that would abolish the Electoral College and implement a direct national vote for president. Their amendment also said that if no candidate won at least 40% of the popular vote, a runoff election would be held between the top two finishers. The proposal quickly gained traction. As polling at the time indicated, Democrats and Republicans alike strongly supported it. Even President Nixon endorsed the idea. Organizations such as chambers of Commerce, unions, and civil rights leaders all got behind it.

In 1969, the Bayh–Celler Amendment passed the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support: 338 to 70. This far surpassed the two-thirds threshold required to advance a constitutional amendment.

But the Senate put up a roadblock. A coalition of Southern segregationists and small-state conservatives mounted a filibuster, arguing that eliminating the Electoral College would weaken the political power of rural states and diminish the influence of the South. Their opposition wasn’t just about states’ rights; it was about preserving a system that allowed a minority of the population to override the majority opinion. Despite widespread and deep public support, the amendment failed to garner the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster. The Senate never even held a final vote.

This marked the end of a noble gesture. Though Senator Bayh reintroduced similar measures in 1971 and 1973, the political will had disappeared. Watergate, economic turmoil, and mounting political cynicism put the final nails in the coffin of Electoral Reform. Later attempts throughout the 1980s and 1990s never made it out of committee.

The idea of Electoral College reform reentered public discourse after the 2000 election, when George W. Bush became president despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore. But even then, no serious congressional momentum emerged. Another shock came in 2016, when Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots and still ascended to the presidency. Once again, many Americans asked: How democratic is a democracy in which the winner can lose? But still, electoral reform looks about as distant as the Andromeda Galaxy.

The United States succumbed to what political scientists call “Counter-Majoritarian Rule.” That’s a fancy way of saying “Minority Rule.” This phenomenon is explained in detail in the book Tyranny of the Minority, by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.

Our inability to get rid of the Electoral College exposes a foundational flaw in our democracy: a system deliberately designed to not only constrain majority rule, but to open the possibility of minority rule. The Electoral College is just one piece of it. The U.S. Senate gives Wyoming the same number of senators as California, giving a voter in Wyoming 67 times the influence as a voter from California. The filibuster allows 41 senators, representing a small minority of the population, to block legislation supported by a national majority. Gerrymandering and voter suppression further tilt the playing field. These are not accidents. They are the remnants of a Constitution designed to protect elite interests over the popular will.

Today, we are paying the price. A vocal, well-organized minority has leveraged these structural advantages to take over the federal courts, control state legislatures, and dominate the national political agenda. They have used their power to pass laws that restrict voting rights, ban books, criminalize protest, destroy labor unions, victimize minorities and LGBTQ, and control reproductive health. They have neutered regulatory agencies, attacked public education, and entrenched themselves in power even as their policies grow increasingly unpopular. This is the anatomy of minority rule, and it is rapidly pushing us toward authoritarianism.

To be sure, throwing autocrats out of office is necessary but not sufficient. If we truly want to protect American democracy, we must reform the very structure of that democracy. That means ending the Electoral College. It means eliminating the Senate filibuster. It means rebalancing representation in the House and Senate and protecting the right to vote as a fundamental principle. We cannot go on pretending that democracy will survive if we leave in place the tools that allow a minority to govern against the will of the majority. If we defeat authoritarianism this time, without systemic changes to our Constitution, laws, and legislative procedures, we will be vulnerable to the next minority seizing power again.

America was once a beacon of democratic innovation, but we have fallen behind. Other democracies such as Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and many others have adjusted their constitutions to meet the needs of a changing world. They’ve reformed voting systems, empowered proportional representation, and strengthened democratic norms. Meanwhile, we cling to an 18th-century structure and hope that somehow it will withstand the pressures of a 21st-century society. Clearly, our Constitution has hit a breaking point.

Hope is not enough. Structural reform is not a radical idea; it is a necessary one. Our founders designed a Constitution for their time, and they intended future generations to modify it as necessary. So it is now our turn to step up and revise it. The choice before us is this: modernize our democracy or watch it decay under the weight of its flaws. The clock is ticking. History will not wait.