As thoroughly satisfying as it is to watch Republicans bury the schadenfreude needle with their public humiliation of Kevin McCarthy, (who couldn’t deserve it more), there’s been a fascinating and telling split-screen on display these past few days as Democrats took over full control of Minnesota government.

One one side we had hapless, spineless McCarthy, a man of no detectable policy interests, suffering his ordeal in the public stocks. On the other we had our local Democrats — i.e. “radical socialists” if you drink the MAGA Kool-Aid — gleefully reminding constituents of the very long list of laws and programs they intend to pass with their new and (likely) transitory majority.

Armchair cynics invariably roll their eyes every time some liberal runs down their legislative “to-do” list. The end credits for a Hollywood super-hero blockbuster are shorter than what liberals vow to do — by god — if they ever get full control of the gears of gummint.

But, lo and behold! That is pretty well what Democrats find themselves being able to do here in Minnesota, at least until the end of the 2024 session of the legislature.

Given both control and an eye-watering surplus, every wish on the DFL’s long list is within reach, presuming the absence of a local version of Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema.

High on that list is certifying abortion rights, and shoring up family leave and voting processes, followed closely-to-simultaneously by bills to address climate change, making prescription drugs affordable, reducing gun violence, boosting education resources, controlling rent costs, filling potholes, re-building bridges, building out broadband and … and … well you get the idea.

Essentially everything that rational taxpayers expect government to do is suddenly possible … for the next two years.

But, as Peter Falk’s Columbo so often mumbled as he exited a scene, “There’s just one thing … .”

To me and a few others the juvenile McCarthy v. Matt Gaetz et al farce in D.C. is a vivid testament to the sewer we’re all forced to live in under minority rule. And there are few better systemic cures to blunting minority rule and the the institutionalized anarchy of modern conservatism than doing away with or at least neutering the Electoral College.

In 2019 the DFL-controlled Minnesota House signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. You can read all the clauses of the compact, but basically it really is this simple : It is “an interstate compact to award member states’ presidential electors to the candidate that receives the most votes nationwide. The NPVIC would go into effect if states representing at least 270 electoral college votes adopt the legislation.”

In other words, for all those “originalists” sentimental about the Electoral College, which in recent years has given us George W. Bush and the epic disaster of the Iraq War, followed by Donald Trump’s start-to-finish dumpster fire, the College would remain. But states signing on to the compact would agree to assign all their electoral votesa to whoever won the popular vote … nationwide.

This thing has been winding its way through legislatures for years and at present has 15 (all blue) states and D.C., representing 195 of the 270 votes needed to give it authority.

Did I mention that the Republican-controlled Senate stifled the vote here in Minnesota four years ago?

If Minnesota’s new DFL Senate majority gets on board, the national number rises to 205, leaving a pathway to 21st century election fairness and actual majority rule in the hands of states like Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), and Virginia (13).

I hold little hope for Ohio these days, but the idea may have some possibilities in Arizona and Georgia.

Obviously, Republicans with their cro-magnon view of originalism and the glorious Founders’ affinity for … minority rule (!?) … will fight the Compact with everything they’ve got.

Why? Well, because they, like you and I, know that without the tortured, anachronistic conventions of the Electoral College, Al Gore would have presided over the 9/11 response and very likely not have gone rampaging into a country that had nothing to do with the attack. And likewise, Hillary Clinton would have steered the ship of state from 2017 until at least 2021. That would have meant, among so much else, a coherent, coordinated, science-based early response to COVID and a leadership that would not have persistently pandered to white nationalist fever dreams and incited a mob to attack the Capitol.

Politics, I’m told, is a game played incrementally and opportunistically. So all I’m suggesting is Minnesota’s Senate Democrats take advantage of the rare opportunity they have and move the ball of actual democratic majority rule another couple yards down field by voting “yea” on the NPVIC.

Looking at the McCarthy farce I think we can all agree that everything would be better off with fewer fools and frauds steering the ship.