MSNBC’s Chris Hayes opened his live show Friday night defending the criticisms of the electoral college raised by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week.

Ocasio-Cortez posted a Twitter thread about abolishing the electoral college and received a response from Republican colleague Dan Crenshaw:

2) This common claim about “if we don’t have the Electoral College then a handful of states will determine the presidency” is BS.
a. It’s the *EC itself* that breaks down power by state, pop vote decentralizes it

b. The EC makes it so a handful of states DO determine elections

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 23, 2019

4) We do not give electoral affirmative action to any other group in America. Do Black Americans have their votes count more bc they have been disenfranchised for 100s of years? Do Reservations get an electoral vote? Does Puerto Rico and US territories get them? No. They don’t.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 23, 2019

5) The Electoral College isn’t about fairness at all; it’s about empowering some voters over others.

Every vote should be = in America, no matter who you are or where you come from. The right thing to do is establish a Popular Vote. & GOP will do everything they can to fight it.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 23, 2019

https://t.co/lMgxXvY9Zr

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 25, 2019

Hayes dove into that debate tonight and argued that “a major fault line” in American politics right now is whether “we actually, really believe in democracy.”

“It is not surprising the Republicans are defending the electoral college, right?” Hayes continued. “There’s a very obvious reason for that. Since 1992, we have had seven presidential elections. Republicans have won the popular vote one time. But they’ve gotten three presidents out of it. Which is a very sweet deal if you’re the Republican Party.”

At one point he said it’s “preposterous” that this system is still in place when “if you run for class president in the fourth grade, you are elected if and only if you get the most votes.”

In response to Crenshaw arguing “we live in a republic, which means 51% of the population doesn’t get to boss around the other 49%,” Hayes said, “What he and his party are advocating is a world in which the 49% boss around the 51%.”

He concluded that “it’s time to do something totally radical, and that is this — run the presidential election the way we run every other election. The person with the most votes wins.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

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