Dude straight lines LMAO!

>The 17th amendment...would disagree with you.
The 17th Amendment holds for the direct election of senators. It says nothing about Article II of the Constitution, which says that the President is selected by the states.
>and general public opinion
Until general public opinion can compel the states to ratify a constitutional convention providing for the direct, proportional election of Presidents, the general public is not important. The structure of the United States Government are not subject to the whims of the public unless it pursues all necessary legal processes.
>Try to run for president on the platform of "the US is not a democracy and democracy is not always desirable".
irrelevant. The reason that the public gets to make this choice is because the states allow them to do so.

>The 17th amendment and general public opinion

Does not change the fundamental structure of the US Government as a Constitutional Federal Republic. Blind popular appeal is not a sound substitute for methodical checks & balances.

It was the founding fathers who coined the term "Tyranny of the Majority".

>The 17th Amendment holds for the direct election of senators

You missed the point entirely. You said the US is not a democracy, and yet it has taken steps since its founding to become more democratic. The right to vote is now universal for all adults rather than exclusively held by land owners. Senators are now determined by popular vote. It would not be out of the question for the Electoral College to, at some point, be replaced.

Rather than arguing for some mistaken sense of constitutional "purity" based on idol worship of the Founding Fathers (who were not a monolith by any means), or for baseless ideological purity, you should argue for the Electoral College based on its own merits.

>than exclusively held by land owners
This is such a misconception.

There isn't a single state that restricted voting to 'land owners'. There were PROPERTY requirements but property was a broad term that encompassed more than land. Owning any US bonds for example was enough to vote. Property requirements were also non-existent in newly created western states to attract more settlers, which in turn caused Eastern states to loosen their own requirements to stem the tide of emigration. By the time of Andrew Jackson, a scant 40 years from the ratification of the constitution, there was near universal white male suffrage (except in a few placed like South Carolina & Virgina).

>You said the US is not a democracy, and yet it has taken steps since its founding to become more democratic.
Yes, and China has taken steps to become more of a free market capitalist economy. Even so, the United States is no more a Democracy than China is a free market capitalist economy, because there remain safeguards enshrined in law preventing it from being so.
>It would not be out of the question for the Electoral College to, at some point, be replaced.
Perhaps, but until it does so it is not a democracy.

>Rather than arguing for some mistaken sense of constitutional "purity" based on idol worship of the Founding Fathers (who were not a monolith by any means)
The only one making some normative ideological argument is you, when you argue that the electoral college
>goes [against] the basic purpose of democracy in our system
when you clearly misunderstand the basic purpose of democracy (as a means chosen by the states to determine how it makes its decisions for the position of president) and its place in our system (as a Republic of States).

I absolutely loathe alternative history, but has anyone ever done a geographic analysis of the United States that shows most likely borders?

>Rather than arguing for some mistaken sense of constitutional "purity" based on idol worship of the Founding Fathers (who were not a monolith by any means), or for baseless ideological purity, you should argue for the Electoral College based on its own merits.
But that's impossible when we cannot agree whether the United States Government should represent the individuals or the states. Either argument is purely normative, so ultimately understanding whether the electoral college functions comes down to the purposes under which the nation was formed, and that ultimately goes back to the founders.

It's up to you whether or not to think their intent and goals were correct, but the only objective part of this argument would be whether the current system meets the intended role of the nation as determined by its founders.

>a scant 40 years

Did you type that with a straight face?

I said that the US has taken steps to become more democratic, and then you somehow think that describing one of those steps in detail is a counter-argument? Yes, Jacksonian democracy was a thing, that's part of my point. It ran counter to the prevailing narrative of the founding generation. Jackson was a populist enemy of the political old guard.

You are mistaken, I'm not In any event, the point that I am personally making is that arguing in favor of a policy because it fits into an ideological pigeonhole is meaningless and will not convince anyone. The Electoral College survives because in most cases it lines up with the will of the people, ie the popular vote. If 2000 and 2016 lead to a trend, then it will be done away with.

The Electoral College is not beloved, it is tolerated, but only just. If you think that it is a valid electoral mechanism, then you should defend it as such, and make your case to the people. If you only support it out of a non-existent ideological consistency, then you've fallen for spooks.

As I said previously, the US has taken steps to become more democratic with the passage of the 17th amendment (among others) and a continuously growing support for universal voting rights. In the case of the legislative branch, the government literally does represent the people, despite the wish of the framers for the Senate to be elected by state legislatures.

The intent of the Founding Fathers when it comes to the "intended role of the nation" is not relevant because the generations after them have changed the name of the game. The Founding Fathers only matter insofar they allowed the system to be changed and to continue to be changed. Also, like I said, they were not a monolith, and the Constitution was in many ways a very heavy compromise.

>I said that the US has taken steps to become more democratic

You spouted a misconception by saying that voting was restricted to 'exclusively landowners' to make the gradual loosening of voting laws seem more radical than it actually was. In any case it was the states who decided voting laws on their own terms, not the federal government, which exemplifies the function of the US as a Federal Republic made up of individual states and not a democracy.

Oh I'm sorry, I said land instead of property, mea culpa. And I would say that Jacksonian-era populism was rather radical, yes.

Once again I have to bring up the 17th amendment, because all of your arguments apply perfectly support the idea of state legislatures voting for Senators, and yet it was done away with in favor of direct democracy.

You seem to be under the assumption that somehow the states themselves are not democratic. It's the exact opposite, states are generally a lot more democratic than the federal government is. The problem with the Electoral College is not the lack of democracy on the part of the states. "Unfaithful" electors are quite rare. The problem is the undue weight the Electoral College gives to a certain group of states because of the nature of how electoral votes are calculated, as well as the demographics of those states.

Like I said, make your case about the Electoral College being a valid electoral mechanism, and make it to the people in open and honest terms. Do not cling to an ideology that has been repeatedly violated.

>I am personally making is that arguing in favor of a policy because it fits into an ideological pigeonhole is meaningless and will not convince anyone.
Yes, which is exactly what you're doing. Right now your argument is entirely that the United States is becoming more democratic, and as such the electoral system is not more democratic and is thus unwelcome on the sole basis that it does not reflect current trends. That's no more a valid argument than the Current Year argument, that anything that does not follow the current trend ought to be rejected for no reason other than its inconsistency.

If, on the other hand, your argument is that government ought to reflect the will of the people in a completely democratic fashion, you are supporting the chance out of a non-existent ideological consistency, to a belief that the United States government should aspire to be as democratic as possible, a belief that exists purely based on how you think things ought to be.

>If you think that it is a valid electoral mechanism, then you should defend it as such, and make your case to the people.
I could say likewise in the same way. If you think that the electoral college is an invalid electoral mechanism, then you should argue it as such and convene a constitutional convention. If your argument against it simply is limited to "the United States is moving closer to a direct democracy in some aspects and therefore should go all the way to becoming a direct democracy," you've fallen for spooks.

still collecting tears

>You seem to be under the assumption that somehow the states themselves are not democratic.
No, you seem to be under the assumption that the federal government and state governments must be consistent in how directly democratic they are, and that to do anything otherwise is a contradiction that somehow "violates" some ideology.

This is not the case. The Federal Government and the States do not need to operate in the exact same fashion, though they often do. But they do so because they choose to. The only federal laws that govern how the states act outside of those already in the constitution are those agreed upon by all the states in a constitutional convention. This includes the 17th Amendment. But as stated in the 10th Amendment, all powers not explicitly vested upon the federal government are held by the states. If the states choose to be democratic or undemocratic outside of their constitutional requirements, that is their choice. But it is not in any way contradictory that the federal government be less directly democratic than the states.

>The problem is the undue weight the Electoral College gives to a certain group of states because of the nature of how electoral votes are calculated, as well as the demographics of those states.
Whether this is a problem is based entirely on ideology, which you repeatedly imply everyone else but you is blinded by.

Secession is illegal so who cares

>this FUCKING meme again

The US is a both a democracy and republic. The terms are not mutually exclusive.

>the low population states have a choice to leave the union
lol