Electoral College, Senate, States

In the United States we have a system that acts like a confederation of 50 independent entities that have come together.  Now in the beginning, the original 13 colonies actually had some claim to this, since they had to some extent independent existences.  Since then with the exception of Texas and California, the other states were created and out of territories.

The question therefore is why do we give some states more importance than the deserve based on population.  It came about because the southern states being primarily agricultural with large populations of slaves would not have joined without being given disproportionate representation.  This was why we have the senate constituted so that each state no matter its size gets an equal representation.

Of course that violates any concept of true democracy where each citizen gets an equal voice in the Government.  A senator from California represents 19 million people while a senator from Wyoming represents about 300,000.

There is no rel justification for this in today's world, but it lives on because the senators from the small states have a vested interest and any such change needs to be ratified by the states themselves.

The electoral college to some extent reflects this distortion although not to the same extents since the house of representatives is closer to equal representation.  However, the end result is that a candidate who lost the popular vote by almost three million votes won the electoral college vote.  It is the system we have but it is not a representative one.

Arguments that using the popular vote to decide would make smaller states irrelevant ignore the fact that every vote would be prized.  Yes, issues important to the majority of Americans would get priority, but shouldn't that be the case?  It certainly is better than having a minority force its views on the majority.

I don't see any prospect of this changing any time soon, and many people who benefit from it are defending it out of self interest.  The idea of the better good has been lost in America today.  I miss it.