The New York Times is the latest to jump on the left's "abolish the electoral college" tantrum after Hillary's loss. While the Times tries to pretend that it's making a bipartisan pitch, everyone knows that this entire movement would not exist if Hillary had won. Furthermore if Hillary had lost the popular vote, but won the election, the Times would be running editorials about how the electoral college protects diversity and prevents demagogues from winning elections.
But the whole argument is based on a basic disregard for what America is.
We're not a bunch of geographical areas who get together every few years to decide which bunch of people will rule us from D.C.
The United States is a union of states. It's in the name. And despite the damage progressives have done to that union, it very much matters. The electoral college is one of the final remnants of the system of government of the United States. Rather than the system of D.C. as an imperial capital where elections are sold to the highest bidder who can mobilize and control the biggest national voting blocs.
Most significantly, the left favors the popular vote because instead of a system based on states, it wants a system based on identity groups. That's how it won elections under Obama.
Instead of mobilizing Michigan, Ohio and Florida, it would like to go straight to mobilizing black voters, Latino voters, gay voters, etc... It's already doing that to a large degree, but the fall of the electoral college would mean the end of the last barrier to its nightmarish system based on dividing the country along the lines of identity politics.
There are many reasons to keep the electoral college. But the left's nightmarish alternative is a compelling one as well.
We are the United States. Not the Divided Races, as the left would like to make us in its endless civil war against America.