from Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report –
There’s nothing new about calls to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote. Until recently, partisans on both sides supported a constitutional amendment to do such a thing. Frustration over a polarized and politicized Supreme Court has been going on forever. Activists on both sides have been pushing their parties to abandon the filibuster rule.
As Washington Post opinion writer Paul Waldman writes, “But the mere fact that Democratic presidential candidates are even talking about this shows that the party — not everyone in it, but a healthy portion of its members and elected representatives — is simply fed up with getting walked all over for being noble. As I’ve said before, when it came to exploiting loopholes, stomping all over norms and fighting dirty, for some time Republicans have been the party of ‘Yes we can’ while Democrats have been the party of ‘Maybe we shouldn’t.’ But that may be changing.”
What changed? In a word: Trump.
