Minority rule, Trump, and accountability.

My work exposing anti-democratic forces.   [Mother Jones]( This seems like a good time to talk about minority rule. And who better to do that than Ari Berman, MoJo voting rights correspondent and author of [Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It](. Ari truly is a one-of-kind journalist, and he’s got a timely message about Donald Trump and accountability for you today. But as a reporter, he’s not in the weeds on our fundraising, so before turning it over to him, I’ll say: [We really need your help right now](. Our hugely important fundraising campaign is way behind where we need it to be with just two and a half weeks left. If you can right now, [please help Ari and all our reporters do the democracy-protecting, justice-advancing journalism you get from us with a donation today](. We can’t afford to come up way short. We urgently need to see a strong response to this email. —Monika   MoJo Reader, Ari Berman writing you today, and even if I’m not a fundraiser, I know [support from readers]( is foundational to everything we do here. For 13 years now, I’ve been reporting on voting rights and how free and fair elections are undermined so parties and politicians can hold on to power, pass extreme legislation, and not fear consequences because their districts are gerrymandered. In 2017, I joined the team at Mother Jones because of the independence we have here. I knew that because of our [readers’ support](, I’d be able to focus on this beat day in, day out, and be able—be encouraged—to go deep and call it like it is, because that’s what you expect Mother Jones to do. Many of us reporters have been able to go deep on a beat like that, and [it’s only because people like you support our work](. So if you can part with a few bucks right now, please [pitch in]( to help us throw everything we can at standing up for democracy and justice during these unbelievably high-stakes next several months. Now, about minority rule, Donald Trump, and the fundamentally anti-democratic Senate, Supreme Court, and Electoral College. If you want to take a deeper dive on these issues, you can [read an excerpt from my new book, Minority Rule](, that we published a few weeks ago. Or you can listen to [the episode of Reveal]( in which host Al Letson and I delve into how protecting a propertied white upper class was enshrined into the Constitution, how we got to where we are today, and importantly, how despite everything, reformers are fighting back and winning. Still want more? You [can buy my new book]( to be among the most informed out there and help raise awareness of these issues between now and November. The founders, in ways they could not have anticipated, placed a ticking time bomb at the heart of American politics. The structural inequalities built into the system have exploded before, most notably leading to the Civil War. But now these problems are accelerating, with one inequity exacerbating another. You probably know the basics. If you can gerrymander legislative district maps, if you can make it harder to vote, if you can install partisans to oversee elections, you don’t have to fear accountability at the ballot box. But let’s look at some of the most startling facts and factors from my years of research and reporting. They’re shocking, and I’d think worth keeping handy as you talk to people about everything going on right now. Like dry rot on a decaying house, the imbalances built into the electoral system keep getting worse. Things that once seemed to be an aberration, like a ­candidate losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College, are now routine. Before the 2000 election, only [three times]( in US history had the loser of the popular vote won the Electoral College. But that’s happened twice in 16 years since then. It almost occurred a third time in 2020, when Joe Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes but Trump lost the three closest states in the Electoral College by just [44,000 total votes](. The level of inequality [in the Senate today](—by far [the worst]( of any upper chamber in an advanced democracy—would have shocked our founders. In 1790, the country’s most populous state, Virginia, had 12 times as many people as its least populous, Delaware. Today, California has nearly 69 times the population of Wyoming. Fifteen states with a population of 41 million people combined now routinely elect 30 Republican senators; California, with 39 million residents, is represented by only two Democrats. Trump’s impeachment trials vividly illustrated the skewed nature of the Senate and its implications. In 2020, the 48 senators who voted to convict him on the first article of impeachment represented [18 million more Americans]( than the 52 senators who voted to acquit him. When Trump was impeached again for inciting the insurrection, the 57 senators who voted to convict him represented [76.7 million more Americans]( than their colleagues. Democrats have won the popular vote in [seven of the past eight]( presidential elections, but for the first time in US history, [five of six]( conservative justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republican presidents who initially lost the popular vote and confirmed by senators elected by a minority of Americans. Much like Republicans in the Senate, the Supreme Court justices nominated by Trump are playing a critical role in boosting his chances of returning to the White House. The court [reinstated Trump to the ballot]( in Colorado, Maine, and Illinois after state officials disqualified him for violating the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. The justices also slow-walked the question of whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution, delaying the federal election subversion case brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith, possibly until after the 2024 election. That means Trump could face [no legal accountability]( for his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection before voters go to the polls. It is the most [brazenly political act]( by the court’s conservative majority since it decided Bush v. Gore, which handed George W. Bush (who also lost the popular vote) the presidency in 2000. Of course, Trump is not just a creation of America’s undemocratic political foundation; he’s an active accelerant of it. He’s exploited institutions like the Electoral College, US Senate, and Supreme Court that benefit him and his MAGA coalition while pushing harder than any previous president to [dismantle the constitutional roadblocks]( that stand in the way of autocracy­­—[weaponizing the 2020 census]( to protect a conservative white minority, trying to [undermine the postal system]( to stop mail voting, [threatening to imprison]( his political opponents, and even calling for the “[termination](” of the Constitution when his ­attempt to overturn the 2020 election results failed. Trump’s [vow]( to be “a dictator” on “day one” and his [larger project](s for the second term—[mass deportations](, [purging]( the federal bureaucracy, voter suppression [on steroids](—are so alarming precisely because his authoritarianism, combined with the conservative takeover of the other branches of government, could make minority rule impossible to reverse. Unless people like us do something about it. I became a journalist and focus on voting right because of a simple truth: When people find out what’s going on, they often want to change it. That still drives me, and I sincerely hope you’ll [help me and everyone here rise to the moment with the donations]( we need to keep charging hard right now. I also hope you’ll [listen to the episode of Reveal]( in which we talk about minority rule, because at the end, we hear from Katie Fahey, a young Michigander who learned how bad minority rule had gotten in her state (it literally led to the Flint water crisis), was naturally enraged, googled “how do you stop gerrymandering in Michigan?”—and ended up leading the charge to amend her state’s constitution to put an end to it. [With your support](, we can reach more people like Katie. There is bipartisan support for reform when it comes to elections, and right now is the time to get reporting and statistics like these to as many people as we can. Thanks for reading and for making the work we’re fortunate to do here at Mother Jones possible. We’re beyond grateful, and I’m blown away by my colleagues’ awesome reporting of late—especially now that we have Reveal in the mix. Sincerely, Ari Berman Voting Rights Correspondent Mother Jones [Donate](   [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755