I am continually surprised by the Democrats inability to see beyond the first layer of cause and effect.
Many states that traditionally award their electoral college votes to Democrats seem to think that the electoral college is a bad idea. They came to this conclusion, not out of some deeper principles; rather, they reached this conclusion because Hillary won the popular vote in 2016. If only the Presidency were determined by the popular vote, the Trump wouldn’t be the President.
So, they reason, if we all get together and pass legislation on the state level to give all of our electoral college votes to the winner of the popular vote, no matter how it turns out in our state, then we will produce the conditions sufficient to regain control to prevent another Trump. (See: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact).
But... there’s always a but. The first layer of cause and effect (Trump bad, Hillary good, electoral college screwed Hillary, electoral college bad) misses a few points.
It’s Democrat states that are signing up for this compact - states that would go to the Democrats anyway. For these states, doing nothing would still mean the electoral college votes would be assigned to the Democratic candidate. Except now... now, they open the possibility that Republicans in other states could actually affect electoral college votes of Democratic states. And they are proudly advertising this fact. This will cause voter behavior to change, more than likely tipping the popular vote toward Trump.
Imagine the sheer butthurt of a Trump 2020 re-election. But to add insult to injury, imagine California forced to give its votes to Trump. Oh the tears... the howling...