409 | The Third Tyrant

This is the question we stopped asking.

This is where I want to start.

Because I think the entire modern argument is built on a foundation that nobody actually inspects.

We take it for granted.

Every fight we have about voting in this country is a fight about the electorate, about the people who vote.

Who's registered? Who got purged? Who needs ID? Who gets early voting versus who doesn't? Who has to come in person? Two coalitions, each absolutely certain that the answer to being governed badly is to assemble a larger pile of votes than the other side.

And I want to be careful because I'm not telling you those fights are unimportant.

Again, you've listened to me.

You know my feelings on this.

Procedural integrity matters as much as any other element.

Access matters as well.

If you can't cast a ballot that gets counted, you're not a citizen in any meaningful sense.

So part of this is what is a citizen? But forget about that for now, because I want you to notice that we conduct that entire argument as though it were the entire argument, and it's not.

We talk about that As if once we settle the votes, we've settled the question of whether or not we're free.

And if you think just voting Republican makes you free, that's just not true.

The men who wrote the Constitution didn't think that.

None of them believed that.

They argued about the franchise constantly.

And I'll show you the actual debate later in this show.

And it's fascinating, frankly.

You don't hear anybody mention this anymore because it's something of a taboo.

And it goes not the way most people would assume.

But for them, the franchise was a downstream question.

It sat underneath a prior question.

And the prior one is this.