On the Dec. 21 edition of CNN‘s “At This Hour with John Berman and Kate Bolduan,” Trump supporter Jeffery Lord and CNN political commentator Angela Rye sparred over Bill O’Reilly recent comments about the Electoral College.
While Lord does not fully agree with the FOX News host’s assertion, he does believe that the Electoral College should stay put. He also blamed American racism on the Democrats.
“What I am certain of is that the Democratic party, since it’s inception, has been the party of race,” Lord says. “There is a culture of racism within the Democratic party that has been there from the get-go. This is … the party of slavery, segregation, lynching, the Ku Klux Klan, and now it’s racial quotas, illegal immigration by skin color. They’re obsessed with race.”
After losing the 2016 presidential election, some Democrats have been adamant about abolishing the archaic Electoral College. This new movement is seen by O’Reilly and other conservatives as an attempt to strip power from white people.
“The Left sees white privilege in America as an oppressive force that must be done away with,” O’Reilly said during his Dec. 20 broadcast. “The Left wants power taken away from the white establishment. Taking voting power away from the white precincts is the quickest way to do that.”
But Rye reminded Lord that the Electoral College was a safeguard for slave-holding states. The commentator declared that both political parties are to blame for racism in this nation.
“We know that racism in this country is a bipartisan and a nonpartisan issue. It has nothing whatsoever to do with party,” she says.
She addressed mounting Republican resistance by saying that, while no one is really proposing a complete overhaul of the Electoral College, there are some proposals for reform that should be looked at.
“As it relates to Bill O’Reilly, what I will tell you very plainly and simply is this: The Electoral College is problematic from its inception and something that was built upon and designed to oppress certain people,” Rye says. “It is okay for us to ask questions, particularly when we know the Electoral College was built upon a system to protect the interests of slave states.”
