Hi Chris.

I agree that things have changed, but I disagree with one or two of your conclusions. You wrote, “the states have converged and melded into a single unit”.

In some ways, but not in others. California is quite different from, say, Texas, in an array of significant ways. One could say also that Sweden and Denmark are so similar to each other that they should have a single government, but I think that the prospect would horrify most Swedes and most Danish.

You also wrote, “the 2016 election … robbed the Federal government of some legitimacy.”

I don’t agree. I did not vote for Trump, but I can see that many of those who did were essentially saying “We don’t like the current approach, so we are going to vote in someone who will tear it down or at least shake it up”. If Hillary had won, then half the country would have felt very, very disenfranchised and stuck with an approach that they did not want, since she had promised to continue existing policies.

So what happened is that the other half of the country felt disenfranchised, and the most extreme elements of that half have called to “resist” — i.e., resist the administration that was elected via our legal process.

While “resist” is a call for chaos, it is understandable, since when Obama was elected, the GOP essentially decided to “resist” everything Obama tried to do. That was inexcusable.

We are locked into this winner-take-all situation, and everyone is miserable. Changing the Electoral College won’t fix that — it will merely shift the balance of power so that the half of the country that identifies as “conservative” will be permanently miserable, and that will not end well.

Somehow we need to address the division problem. I think that part of it is caused by our winner take all system. Perhaps we need a parliamentary system. Or perhaps we need to shift to a ranked choice voting system so that a third party can have a chance. Perhaps we need to break up news media so that there is more diversity of opinion. I don’t know. And definitely, money is massively corrupting the political process.