Segnosaur: does one person/one vote always guarantee liberty? Sometimes it enables the majority to run roughshod over the rights of the minority. This idea that because you won the majority in the election, gives you the right to do what the heck you want is ridiculous. (Just so you know, that is NOT a reference to the 2016 election....)
No, one person/one vote doesn't guarantee liberty. The protection of liberty largely comes from the courts anyways, not from the legislature or presidency.
Yes, there is the potential for the "majority running roughshod over the minority". But the electoral college doesn't prevent the chance of abuses; it just changes the people who are most likely to do the abusing from the majority to the minority.
Consider this: Trump has managed to get 2 hard-right nominees on the supreme court. (Then there are also dozens of similar judges appointed to the lower levels.) He has done so despite the fact that he lost the popular vote and only got elected thanks to the electoral college. Now that the balance of the supreme court has shifted to the right, you are looking at the possibility of:
- Elimination (or at least severe curtailing) of abortion rights
- Continuing voter rights suppression
Many people would consider those to be significant loses of rights, yet they were not done by a majority imposing its will on the minority, but on the minority imposing its will on the majority.
But checks and balances are equally as important to ensure a democratic society. "I won the majority so I can govern how I want" is the path to dictatorship not democracy.
Who said they can "govern how they want"? They still have to follow the constitution and the basic laws of the land.
The electoral college does nothing to prevent the "rise of a dictatorship", since there is no reason to think a Trumpian "EC-installed" authoritarian couldn't similarly eliminate democratic principles.
I said that the small states get MINIMAL protection against the larger ones. ...California has 38 million people, it gets 55 electoral votes. Wyoming has a herd of buffalo and half a dozen ranchers, it gets 3. It keeps those states from being entirely stripped of their influence and interests
They wouldn't be entirely stripped Wyoming of their influence anyways, since they would still have equal representation in the senate to California.
Everything in politics can, depending on how you look at it, be both a blessing or a curse; a double-edged sword.
"Many other governments...function well with centralized governments."
Not the largest ones....like the US. Sweden is run well centrally....with a population of 10 million over an area the size of New England. Can you say the same for a country with 320 million people that fills up a third of the North American continent?
Why does geographic area really matter?
Yes, the U.S. is a country with a lot of population and land mass. That doesn't necessarily mean that decentralization is mandatory.
And more importantly, why are you assuming that simply electing the president by popular vote is going to significantly change the way the U.S. functions? The power of each state to control its internal affairs will not be significantly affected. Its a minor change to the way the executive branch is elected. There will be no additional power given to the federal government as a result.