'@GoldenBanana' problem is that that relic is the only reason why flyover country matters anymore.
Switching to popular vote carries with it a good chance that presidential elections will be dominated by a single party, since major population centers are convenient for campaigning/gotv effort and at the same time inevitably lean left. If Dems lock in POTUS, ability to control individual states via SCOTUS, executive orders, budget, legislative spam combined with veto power and various agencies (see also: attempts to regulate coal industry via EPA to circumvent Congress, WV should have loved it) would be such that individual states have little to no reason to exist. If Bay Area, New York and Chicago are able to dominate federal government, it is unlikely that you will be able to come up with more restrictive laws and regulations at local level, and being less restrictive is not an option when federal law and agencies have priority.
Then again, I'm looking at it from a point where having a Soviet Union of America is not a good thing.
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'@GoldenBanana' problem is that that relic is the only reason why flyover country matters anymore.
Switching to popular vote carries with it a good chance that presidential elections will be dominated by a single party, since major population centers are convenient for campaigning/gotv effort and at the same time inevitably lean left. If Dems lock in POTUS, ability to control individual states via SCOTUS, executive orders, budget, legislative spam combined with veto power and various agencies (see also: attempts to regulate coal industry via EPA to circumvent Congress, WV should have loved it) would be such that individual states have little to no reason to exist. If Bay Area, New York and Chicago are able to dominate federal government, it is unlikely that you will be able to come up with more restrictive laws and regulations at local level, and being less restrictive is not an option when federal law and agencies have priority.
Then again, I'm looking at it from a point where having a Soviet Union of America is not a good thing.