Globally, Broad Support for Representative and Direct Democracy

[BmorePat87]

(10-17-2017, 01:00 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: You just contradicted yourself.

Getting rid of the electoral college would be the very thing that let regional trends dictate for the whole. It would promote creating highly populated political echo-chambers. No longer would it be about trying to convince swing states that they should vote for you, instead it would be about taking states that already are going to vote for you, and creating such a insular self-feeding culture that you eventually create overwhelming support for yourself in that area.

The swing states that actually choose both parties? Who cares. They'll be somewhere between 50-50 and 45-55. Instead it would be all about creating more Californias (D):
54.31% vs 44.36% in 2004
61.01% vs 36.95% in 2008
60.24% vs 37.12% in 2012
61.73% vs 31.62% in 2016

And creating more Texases ®:
61.09% vs 38.22% in 2004
55.39% vs 43.63% in 2008
57.17% vs 41.38% in 2012
52.23% vs 43.24% in 2016

For instance Ohio has never gone higher than 51.7% for a candidate in the last 5 elections and has never voted one party more than 3 times in a row since 1908. So without the electoral college, the difference between getting a majority of voters in Ohio or not is significantly less important than getting 64-66% in California/Texas heavily leaning regions instead of just 61%.

So creating huge crushing victories in the most populace states that a party was always going to win would be more important than getting the last couple % to get a majority in a swing state. It's easier to convince 3-5% more people in a California and Texas region to show up to the polls who were always going to vote for you anway than it is to convince states that don't vote solely based off party lines to vote for you this year.

It would create an even more intense political echo chamber situation than we already have as parties focus more on creating even more decisive advantages in regions that they already were going to win by creating a bigger and bigger us-vs-them mentality each election, and it would almost certainly lead to a political party "war", either a metaphorical or literal one.

I understand the point you're making, and that's true, and I'll explain how I intended for this to come across.

As it stands, swing states, many of which being regional (midwest or rust belt), decide the outcome of the election. As you have correctly pointed out, they don't tend to be heavily in favor of one candidate, minimally swinging back and forth on between election cycles. This is the regional trend I am referring to. 

Either we give power to this or we just say that the plurality rules, even if they are in higher centers of population. I personally prefer to the latter because it means all voices are equal, all votes count, and it encourages third options. 

Likewise, I'd prefer to see a Senate that represented non regional/state choices. A system, possibly, where we use a ranked choice voting system where we can vote for candidates across the country. I think Matt has advocated for these in the past. 

If you tackle gerrymandering at the same time, it'll mean less echo chambers are states don't come into play for the Senate or the President and congressional districts are less extreme.