system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Abolishing the electoral college would set a very bad precedent

There has been a lot of pushback against the electoral college recently, mostly because it’s how Trump won, but a lot of critics seem to be missing the bigger picture. The electoral college is a very significant part of our system, created as a compromise to balance the interests of people in more populous states against those in less populous states. Regardless of its merits, it’s a pretty big deal, and getting rid of it would set a precedent that it’s ok to tamper with the very basics of how our country functions. If it’s fine to get rid of the electoral college because we don’t like the results (and let’s be honest about that), what’s to keep people in the future from deciding that other aspects of our nation are inconvenient, be it term limits, separation of powers, or freedom of speech?

Edit: View mostly changed. I am not necessarily against abolishing the electoral college, I just think we should be careful about it. A possible compromise would be to keep the electoral college but abolish the winner takes all system. That’s my current preference. Maybe electoral college could be a next step, although I think that it’s unlikely to be successful and we have bigger priorities.
gpt
The pushback against the EC has been going since they very start of the country. It’s not just because it cause Trump won—it’s because the entire idea of the EC is a fundamental violation of the democratic principle. This has become a lot more of a problem as the President has accumulated more and more powers over time.

We are now in the position of having a very powerful and nearly singular figure in politics “elected” by a no proportional and fairly no representative process that is *regularly* resulting in the will of the people being ignored and the less popular candidate being elected.

It’s not specifically because Trump was elected, it’s because it’s regularly producing an outcome where the less popular candidate is getting elected. How is that democracy?

And as to your precedent argument—getting rid of the EC would hardly be the first tine the US has tinkered with the basic structure of the government.  Consider the 17th amendment, which made Senators directly elected by the people of a state rather than appointed by state legislatures. That was a huge change in the fundamental structure of the government, but most people today view that as a good thing.