>>This notion that all the population is on the coasts is, of course, nonsense. Texas is one of the most populous states. So's Illinois.

That's a derailing straw man argument. ;-)

Consider California with its 18M registered voters. That makes California's very strong Democratic vote overwhelm at least a dozen flyover states if you insist on a national tally rather than popular vote per state. Add in the East Coast and people in fo-states might as well not bother voting as it makes no difference. Even reliably Republican Texas is dwarfed by the Democrat coastal states and would be powerless if Democrat coasters are allowed to insist that overall head count is fairest.

I keep returning to the UN. If overall head count is fairest, why does the UN allow one representative per state? Current dogma means that China and India ought to run the UN, because that's democratic.

Of course the reason you don't hear that call in the US is because the US would be rendered irrelevant, same as every other nation outside the Asian Hegemony. What sort of idiot would participate in that? The reason you don't hear that call from China and India is because they know that other states aren't stupid enough to buy into a philosophy that hands control to other states whose interests you already know are not aligned with yours.