"If the president were elected by simple majority vote then small states would be overpowered by large states. Thanks to the electoral college the interests of small states are protected."
Okay but... what are the "interests of small states"? Do small states have a consistent set of certain political interests that are clearly distinguishable from the interests that big states have? Do people who live in small states categorically believe or care about different things than people who live in big states do?
Conservatives like to talk about "small states" as if that isn't a category that includes both Vermont and Wyoming.
I think the underlying circumstances are too different to effectively compare. For one, a socialist party is likely to be Urban. Unless all of a sudden all the reactionary chuds in suburbia and rural America became card carrying commies, the rural advantage is just fundamentally a conservative advantage. That more so applies to the Senate and Electoral College than state level offices/operations, such as Gerrymandering.
But even if all of a sudden the roles were reversed, you don't think the military industrial complex and finance capital wouldn't just change the rules? They hide behind a veil of legalism to make it look like they wouldn't just utilize power anyway. That's why I think it's best to attack the idea on first principles of democracy.