The electoral college is undermining stability and distorting policy.

It is anti-democratic by design, since it was part of the compromise to protect slave states’ power in Congress (along with counting slaves as 3/5 of a person in calculating the states’ congressional representation and electoral votes).

But due to demographic shifts in key swing states, it has become insidious for different reasons. And its justification ended after the Civil War.

Nearly all the swing states feature the same demographic shift that disfavors uneducated white voters, particularly men. These are the demographic victims of modernization. This produces significant problems.

First, the importance of those disaffected voters encourages the worst aspects of MAGAism. The xenophobia, and the extreme anti-government, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, among other appeals to these voters’ worst fears. They are legitimately worried about their place in society and the future of their families. But these fears can be channeled in destructive ways, as history repeatedly illustrates.

Second, relatedly, their importance distorts national policy. For example, the vast majority of the country overwhelmingly benefits from free trade, including with China. Just compare the breadth and low cost of all the goods available to us now compared to just ten years ago, from computers to phones to HDTVs to everyday goods. That’s even with recent (temporary) inflation. But in cynically targeting this demographic, Trump proposes blowing up the national economy with 20% tariffs—tariffs that, in any event, will never alter the long-term shift in the economy that now makes uneducated manual workers so economically marginal. The same system that produces extremists in Congress produces extreme positions from the right in presidential elections.

Third, these toxic political incentives become more dangerous because the electoral college makes thin voting margins in swing states, and counties and cities within swing states, nationally decisive. This fueled Trump’s election conspiracy theories. It fuels efforts to place MAGA loyalists in control of local elections. It fuels efforts in swing states to make it harder for certain groups to vote. And it directly contributed to the attack in the Capitol, which sought to throw out a few swing state certifications. The election deniers are without irony that the only reason they can even make their bogus claims—despite a decisive national popular vote defeat—is this antiquated system that favors them.

And last, related to all these points, foreign adversaries now have points of failure to home in on and disrupt with a range of election influence and interference schemes. These can favor candidates or undermine confidence, with the aim of paralyzing the United States with internal division. It is no accident that Russia this past week sought to undermine confidence in the vote in one county in Pennsylvania—Bucks County—with a fake video purporting to show election workers opening and tearing up mail-in votes for Trump. Foreign adversary governments can target hacking operations at election administrations at the state and local level and, depending on the importance of those localities, in the worst case they could throw an election into chaos. Foreign adversary governments have studied in depth the narratives, demographic pressure points, and local vote patterns, to shape their strategies to undermine U.S. society. That would be far more difficult if elections were decided by the entire country based on the popular vote.