The whole electoral college is non-intentional gerrymandering. The candidate with fewer votes has been winning since 2000, and winning with a wider and wider vote margin. A major political goal should be getting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact done.
I don't think the changing media landscape can be disentangled from this, which is a trend happening for unrelated reasons. If the only thing happening was urban concentration, then the mathematical predicted response of politicians would be that the liberal part becomes political-center and the conservative part skews further right.
The Electoral College is specifically intended not to line up with the popular vote. It is the final chance for the conscience of the people of the United States, unfettered by anything, to weigh in on the merit of those the masses have chosen as candidates for the highest office. The Faithless Elector was a feature; not a bug.
Or at least it was until it was perverted by the two major National Conventions. As mentioned earlier, read the Federalist papers for more context; but be prepared for a let down when it starts to sink in how much care was put into the system just for things to go off the rails, and I don't mean because of things like suffrage or the Civil Rights Movement either; but by the slow degeneration of the integrity of the system through the death by 1000 cuts of self-centered legislation, dismantling and delegation of Legislative authority to the executive, excessive politicization of the Judiciary, non-mandating of sunset dates for legislation, and the cancerous taint that is the lack of House or Senate limits on consecutive terms.
To me, the most relevant difference between then and now is the looseness of the union. It makes sense that all states get an equal vote... only when the votes don't really matter. If California broke up into 5 states, they would get 5x the power by the holy virtue of making that administrative decision.
An alliance of states can make sense. Everyone at the table knows they're not equal, because they're representing totally different entities. However, they all have a voice because they all have decision power. In an alliance, votes don't make sense as a decision-making apparatus with power. The gathering is for the purpose of international diplomacy, and freedom of action is determined by the real capabilities of each sovereign.
>To me, the most relevant difference between then and now is the looseness of the union.
To me, it is the terrifying ease with which instantaneous information/sentiment propagation can be utilized to sever one from a rational ground state and whip up a furor with which to push through an carve up of the Nation's civil liberties that truly sets us apart now.
Even reading literature from the time, it factors heavily in that to prevent misbehavior and oppression by a majority, there must be a realistic point of view taken as to the weakness of such a large mass to chaos and lack of coordination to operate in concert. This is a point that I don't think many truly appreciate that the Founder's understood and accounted for. To them, the majority was not always right. In fact, it would be accurate to state that the structure of government they settled on was designed to effectively serve the purposes for which it was intended, and no more; so great was the risk represented by such an edifice. The amount of Liberty preserved so great, and the sacrifice of civil freedoms was meant to be as minimal as possible, leads me to believe they saw legislation as more of a failure state than as a desirable State of affairs. At least in as much as said legislation did not tend to reinforce and preserve the Unity of the Nation as a whole.
>If California broke up into 5 states, they would get 5x the power by the holy virtue of making that administrative decision.
That is dead on point. By the way, Federalist Papers 6-10 touch on the ills of factionalism, and the delicate balance that must be struck between the number of representatives, and the population they represent. It was a conscious decision at the time to try to satisfy suffrage in order to safeguard the liberties of the Nation as a whole.
Sure. I was pointing out that there's up-and-down fundamental issues with the American voting system that would take a massive reform to fix as mere tweaks alone won't suffice. I think we'd agree on this.
