Yes, I have thought of that, and hidden in your post is exactly why I would try to persuade us that the EC is good: if it's a matter of one bloc of voters prevailing over another, that presents us with the question of
which bloc ought to prevail and why, and if the answer is only "the larger one," for the larger one's sake, that's another version of might makes right. The EC attempts to prevent a majority from asserting its will to power over a (potentially unpopular) minority. The EC, in theory, makes candidates make a broader appeal to different kinds of voters in different kinds of places (would that more candidates both on the left and on the right were more appealing! I'd certainly like that). I don't think the question of
which bloc and
whose values can be overcome without an assertion of the might of one over the other, a future I would commend to none of us. The EC
attempts to balance those forces. Not saying it's perfect, but I am again trying to persuade us against dispensing with it.
Related, @
theflashunc: I somehow don't worry about cities; cities will always be huge wells of centralized capital, and cities' values will always prevail insofar as that's the case. The EC is a guard against parallel centralization in political life. Again, lest 2016 be forgotten so fast, whose values prevail when, for instance, capital evacuates rural areas or small towns (or heads offshore?). There were five union auto plants in my hometown in Ohio when I was a kid (as recently as the 90s! - I'm young). There are zero today. That is the result of deliberate decisions leaders made. The people are still there. The EC (and the Senate) is probably among the few buffers folks in places like that have against getting completely run roughshod by the centralization of capital and power. Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, and like it or not, DJT, didn't begrudge the people in flyover country that and made their appeals thusly.
Also, I don't think it needs to be said that the U.S.'s history with slavery is grievous, but it bears repeating: the history is grievous. Still, the link between the EC and slavery isn't so clear cut to everyone, and if you accept this historian's claim, is actually fairly murky.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/o...very-myth.html