"we should have a democracy like I was taught in Civics class." If your civics class taught you that we had a democracy, then you had a lousy civics teacher. That's never been how this is supposed to work.
Oh, I know that. But I went to school in the 50's and 60's and was always told we live in a Democracy. (Along with many other things that were not true.) I was in college before I found out how it really worked. It took the 2000 election to get me to even start to understand it. Most people I know were barely aware of the Electoral College and what it could do before that fiasco. We were at a Halloween party with a number of young people and they were like, "huh?" as some of us old timers tried to explain. So I feel that today's teachers are still doing a poor job of getting the point across.
I'm still sticking with the necessity of the Electoral College. It's an America thing. You don't toss something that's worked for 220+ years just because one election didn't come out the way you wanted it to. We're not a pure democracy. Pure democracies suck.
Gore/Clinton versus Bush/Trump - I'm not sure the thing you think has worked so well has really worked so well.
It did exactly what it was supposed to ... prevented California and NY from choosing the President all by themselves. Don't blame the Electoral College for picking Hillary Clinton to run against Trump. The DNC did that.
In California. She wasn't running for President of California. She was running for President of the United States.
She got more votes IN AMERICA mawnck (by the way how *do* you pronounce your name!? I've always wondered!!). If you mean that California put her "over the top", well that's a pretty big assumption. A lot of us voted for her in other states, and it all added up. You know, kinda democratically.
Yes, California (and perhaps New York). I'm quite comfortable assuming that. One of my main points that I seem to be expressing poorly is that states are a thing. "United States". They aren't just arbitrary boundaries drawn on a map, they're individual sovereign governments that joined together to create a country. Their sovereignty has been eroded over the years, but it's still there. And individuals do not elect the President, and aren't supposed to elect the President. The United States are. That's how this works. Why do you hate America? The electoral college was part of the compromise by which the US constitution came into being. The states are represented in the EC almost, but not quite, based on population, but they're still states. We don't just ignore their existence because Democracy, or because we lost one or two particularly stupid POTUS elections. Besides, Hillary and her campaign knew about the electoral college, they based their campaigning on the electoral college, and still got their butts kicked - everywhere except states where they didn't even campaign (with few exceptions). That's not the electoral college's fault. I know it's tempting to lash out at something that "caused" the loss, but how about we don't make it the US Constitution, hmm?
Well put. That being the case, why not just have 50 electoral votes then? Hell, if each state is equal, that'd be perfect, right? Except they're not, really. The bigger states are "kinda" more important, but not really, and the whole convoluted mess winds up coming down to which states are the most milquetoast in any given year. So really, *none* of the states really matter all that much, except for the wishy-washy ones. Great system. As long as love trumps hate, I will always love my country. In the meantime though, I'll be avoiding my country for the next 4-8 years or so. I suggest you all do the same, and come visit me in nice, safe, rational JAPAN where the baths are hot, the streets are safe, and DisneySea kicks the crap out of the rest of the parks combined.
Uh ... yeahhhhhhh ... which is exactly why the system is the way it is. It was a compromise. Proportional by population, plus two bonus electors for being a state. The US Constitution is absolutely lousy with compromises like that. It's why it's held out over 200 years. See, now this is where I start whimpering. I've been trying to gather enough funds to take a trip to Japan for years now, and ever since then it's been steadily and consistently slipping further away. Right now a drive to my parents' house for Thanksgiving is a financial strain. Thanks a bundle for reminding me. Pbbbbbbt.
We have the Senate to give the states their say in government. I don't like that my vote counts less than others. It's not fair and "this is the American way of doing things" is a lousy argument for it. It hasn't worked the way it was designed to do. I'm totally on board with dumping it. I'm kind of for dumping the Senate too. But that's a different argument.
