There's no such thing as the "popular vote" in American Presidential elections, and yet the term is used frequently to refer to the total aggregate accumulated by each candidate nationwide. Some people are calling for Electoral College electors to abandon Trump because Hillary "won the popular vote", but James Taranto points out the problem with the the argument.
The Electoral College is consistent with the U.S.'s constitutional character as a union of states. We suppose we can understand why one might prefer direct nationwide election by popular vote, but the way to achieve that would be through a constitutional amendment. Good luck with that: It's unlikely the requisite 38 states would agree to defer to California (where Mrs. Clinton's margin was more than four million, meaning that Trump "won the popular vote" in the other 49 states combined.)
If we're going to create arbitrary groupings of states to support our preferred candidate, why can't everyone play?
