Dana Perino delivered a hard civics lesson to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she attacked the Electoral College on claims of “racism.”

The Fox News co-host schooled the New York Democratic socialist during an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on “states’ rights” and the system designed by America’s founders which elects the president and vice president of the United States.

(Video: Fox News)

Ocasio-Cortez slammed the voting system as a “scam” in an Instagram story she shared Monday, scoffing as she drove along a deserted stretch of road, “many votes here, as you can see.”

“Very efficient way to choose leadership of the country. I mean I can’t think of any other way, can you?” the freshman congresswoman said, claiming the system has a “racial injustice breakdown” which undermines minorities.

“Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the Electoral College effectively weighs white voters over voters of color, as opposed to a ‘one person, one vote’ system where all our votes are counted equally,” she added.

“You may have heard this Electoral College argument the most: that families in suburbs, cities must have their vote suppressed in order to give rural votes a ‘fair shake,'” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Could you imagine if we had this kind of democracy-altering ‘fairness’ provision for literally any other group? If we weighted, for example, Black, Indigenous voters more because of fairness?”

The New York lawmaker, who wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, declared the same fate for America’s voting system, joining the drumbeat on the left that has decried the Electoral College especially in the wake of President Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, despite losing the popular vote.

“Facts are facts America,” Ocasio-Cortez concluded. “The Electoral College has to go.”

Perino soon made it very clear that the congresswoman must have slept through her high school history classes as America’s founders actually designed the Electoral College to allow the majority to rule while protecting the minority – like those in the rural areas that Ocasio-Cortez was effectively dismissing as she drove by their towns.

“It’s such a disservice to the institution, to the framers of our Constitution,” the host of  “The Daily Briefing” told Tucker Carlson Wednesday. “It’s bad for civics education.”

“And, because she drives through a rural area of the United States, she’s driving through flyover country, then she thinks it’s okay to say that these people don’t matter, the people who live here don’t matter,” Perino said. “We know there are rural parts of the country. There are micro centers. There are urban centers. There’s all of these things.”

“The Electoral College, no, it’s not racist. Nobody said it was racist until recently. They didn’t say it when Barack Obama won the Electoral College twice,” the former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush added.

“The other thing is, when she talks about this, not wanting the Electoral College, it’s just the next step to saying that they don’t want the United States Senate either, because the United States Senate allows for two senators from every state. They don’t want states’ rights,” Perino added.

She argued that critics of the system just “want the cities” to decide who will be in charge.

“They don’t want to have to persuade and use argumentation to say why their policy prescriptions would be better,” the co-host of “The Five” noted, adding that “the Founders knew what they were doing when they set it up.”

“Majority rule is not what we are set up to have,” she explained. “We are a Republic. We have states’ rights.”

She cited a recent appeals court decision ruling against Colorado after it passed a law to award the state’s electoral votes to the popular vote winner. Perino called efforts by Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left to undermine the foundational system simply “futile” because the “Electoral College is not going to change in our lifetime.”

Carlson agreed, noting that liberals “seek to take the question off the debate table by calling it racist.”

“In other words, your position isn’t even worth hearing because you’re a bad person, because you are racist, because you support a racist institution. What does that kind of thinking do to our public discourse?” he said.

Perino pointed to the growing support for the notion of eliminating the Electoral College, pointing to the Democratic 2020 contenders who are backing that move, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

A National Popular Vote interstate compact has gained the backing of several Democrat-run states.

“Imagine how many people are out there hearing that the Electoral College is the bane of their existence?” she asked.

“That certainly is not the way to win back the White House if you think you want to win,” Perino contended, asserting that “it is a disservice to say it should be abolished without acknowledging that it actually has a purpose.”

“Abraham Lincoln only won the presidency because of the Electoral College,” she added.

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Frieda Powers

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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