But even then the weighting is _very_ uneven. The number of votes per elector can vary wildly by state, by as much as some small whole multiple. So the “weight” of one vote in one state can be say, four times that of another state.

It’s amazing to me that this can stand and efforts to change never seem to get very far.

My bad, I thought it was massively unbalanced in favor of flyover states vs population centers.

That's a silly comparison when even the EU is a mix of by-country/by-population (council/parliament—and even the parliament is weighted toward giving smaller countries more representation)

> is the US a democratic union of 50 states

If you mean "state" in the sense of "nation-state", then no, the US is not a democratic union of 50 states. It's a federal republic. While each state does have its own identity, government, and laws, the US federal government has much more power over US states than the EU has over member countries.

> the current electoral system was set up to weight the votes of states that were members of the union

The current electoral system was set up to appease the southern slave-owning states who would have had little representation if the straight popular vote was used.

> Perhaps 'dated' is a better description than 'broken'.

Potato, potahto. Distinction without a difference, in this case.

He increased the deficit while supposedly raining in on spending?

I didn't know that at the time of writing. Anyway I don't need to bash his presidency, he's got that covered.

How about some good old-fashioned respect for the office of President?

Trump's legacy already speaks for itself.

As far as Europe and other overseas countries are concerned, Trump's most remarkable accomplishment was quite some time ago when he was President the first time.

He made unprecedented Presidential history already, and for the rest of his life (as well as the lives of millions of other senior citizens) he can bask in the degree of admiration that he brought to such an esteemed executive office.

He clinched it like no other in over 75 years of very strong & respectable leadership, recognized worldwide which really means something to international partners of all kinds.

He made sure that President Barack Obama will go down in history as the final US President to effectively be the "leader of the free world", in a long line of illustrious Republicans & Democrats who may one day regain such a level of respect again.

Only not possible in the lifetimes of millions of people around the world, for whom it's just a little too late now. Biden couldn't recover that mantle in only 4 years unless he was a miracle worker of some kind, that's how elusive it really was.

Completely eluded Trump, and once again the traditional American kind of world-class leadership on an international stage fades further into the past, with no recovery on the horizon any time soon.

This is something that nobody can deny.