I don' feel the scenario you describe adresses my real concern. Here is a longer version as to why I'm unconvinced.
- The compact is a deliberate attempt to get around the fact that 'popular vote winner becomes president' doesn't have enough support to happen by constitutional amendment. Norms may have been beaten into pulp and left to die in a gutter during the Trump mandate, but I still hold the quaint belief that trying to get around rules and consitutions is a red flag.
- Blue states support the compact and red states don't because everyone expects it to benefit the Democratic party. That's the long and short of it, if the Democrat flipped Texas, they'd drop the subject. I'm sure they believe 'all votes should matter equally'when they say it, but it is blindingly obvious that party activists on all sides would rather win an election on the electoral college than lose it on the popular vote.
- It is not self-evident that electing the president through direct popular vote is desirable. The British Prime Minister is elected by Parliament. There are countries where party leaders are chosen either in closed primaries or by a vote of the representatives themselves, and only then do the people pick one. These systems clearly give less direct power to the people, but are they "less democratic", do they introduce "multiple tiers of citizenship"? I don't think so. This is the ages-old debate between direct democracy and representative democracy, and I don't believe 'more things get decided by direct popular vote' is necessarily progress. I want the people to rule, it does not follow that a 52% majority should get its way at all times.
This is not a defense of the electoral college itself: no one would advocate for that specific system in 2023 if the US didn't already have it. But put these points together, and here is the way the Republican would phrase it: the Democrat aren't sure they can win by the rules, so they decided to unilaterally re-write them, in a ham-fisted attempt to force their guy into the Oval Office. I would dance in the ashes of the Republican party if it got what it deserves for its capitulation to Trump, but I'm not sure they would be wrong on that count.
Bitterly divided times are the worst time to change the institutions. Even though that's also when they feel most inconvenient. If that is not classical liberalism, what is?
I don' feel the scenario you describe adresses my real concern. Here is a longer version as to why I'm unconvinced.
- The compact is a deliberate attempt to get around the fact that 'popular vote winner becomes president' doesn't have enough support to happen by constitutional amendment. Norms may have been beaten into pulp and left to die in a gutter during the Trump mandate, but I still hold the quaint belief that trying to get around rules and consitutions is a red flag.
- Blue states support the compact and red states don't because everyone expects it to benefit the Democratic party. That's the long and short of it, if the Democrat flipped Texas, they'd drop the subject. I'm sure they believe 'all votes should matter equally'when they say it, but it is blindingly obvious that party activists on all sides would rather win an election on the electoral college than lose it on the popular vote.
- It is not self-evident that electing the president through direct popular vote is desirable. The British Prime Minister is elected by Parliament. There are countries where party leaders are chosen either in closed primaries or by a vote of the representatives themselves, and only then do the people pick one. These systems clearly give less direct power to the people, but are they "less democratic", do they introduce "multiple tiers of citizenship"? I don't think so. This is the ages-old debate between direct democracy and representative democracy, and I don't believe 'more things get decided by direct popular vote' is necessarily progress. I want the people to rule, it does not follow that a 52% majority should get its way at all times.
This is not a defense of the electoral college itself: no one would advocate for that specific system in 2023 if the US didn't already have it. But put these points together, and here is the way the Republican would phrase it: the Democrat aren't sure they can win by the rules, so they decided to unilaterally re-write them, in a ham-fisted attempt to force their guy into the Oval Office. I would dance in the ashes of the Republican party if it got what it deserves for its capitulation to Trump, but I'm not sure they would be wrong on that count.
Bitterly divided times are the worst time to change the institutions. Even though that's also when they feel most inconvenient. If that is not classical liberalism, what is?