Engineer?  Now I'm really disappointed:


1.) You should be able to understand the basic concept of federalism and why the federal government shouldn't tell states how to run their primaries.  

2.) You should be able to diagnose the fact that its our current political and media climate that keeps "good people" from running, much less winning.

3.) You have no excuse for sitting there and typing that one extra CO2 molecule is going to cause a death spiral of negative feedback loops when it's contradicted by the entirety of the historic record (temp rises generally predate CO2 increases.)

4.) You should be able to observe that in the last two election cycles your brand of go along to get along Nice guy "conservatism" was repudiated.

To the original point 

1.)  Donald Trump isn't a Demagogue.  For all the tweeting and bloviation and the like he articulated a clear vision for the future of America based on clear policy points that have been both implemented and affective.  On Trade he advocated retributive tariffs, the trade deficit is shrinking, China has come to the negotiating table and we haven't experienced an inflationary cycle or shortage of produced goods.  On Taxes he pointed out that having the largest corporate tax rate in the world was limiting our global competitiveness, he drastically cut the corporate tax rate, implemented individual tax reform, and the first year under his tax plan saw higher tax revenue than the previous year (IIRC you owe me a sandwich on that one.)  On Regulatory reform he said he would enact a 2 for 1 rule eliminating 2 regulations for every new one proposed and his administrative departments actually exceeded that ratio.  The resulting increase in our global competitiveness has brought companies and industry back to our shore that the BETTERS of our society thought were impossible.  People laughed when he said he could get apple to invest in domestic production, their not laughing now.  He said he would decimate the ISIS Caliphate and we just cleared their last territorial stronghold.  Not to mention the fact he's arguably the most successful private sector person to ever hold the position.  

2.) The electoral College was designed to ensure state and regional sovereignty.  It's not an instrument of Democracy, its an instrument of democratic republicanism.  An extension of the idea that we should choose an executive in the similar fashion that we pass law. To that end it worked exactly as intended.  Right now you have two of the most populous states in the country that are driving themselves off a fiscal cliff as they swerve off the road to uncompetitive business environments.  The EC was designed to limit the ability of someone in Oregon to tell a border state they can't enforce immigration law, someone in New York to implement a failed set of federal policies to make Tennessee just as onerous a business environment as they are, or to have some group of elites out in perpetual 72* temperatures dictate to someone in Miami what they should set their thermostat to or raise the electric bill of someone in Wisconsin during the winter time.  State sovereignty matters, and in a post federalist landscape, it might be all we have left.  

3.) If you want to get on your horse and decide that you want to repeal the 17th amendment and replace it with the indirect election of senators and electors by state legislatures then have at it.  I think you'll find that

a.)  the ratification process is actually a little more challenging than cobbling together 270 electoral votes.  
b.) That the state legislators that openly advocate for abortion during birth to protect the mental health (not making this up.) of the mother...  Think about that.  Mental Health...  are just as sober and judicious as the people who vote for them.  

(as an aside, no you wouldn't have to repeal the 17th amendment, but contextually a return to an indirect system of selecting electors should mirror the selection of the higher chamber of congress, especially given the roll of its basic composition [even representation for all states] in the foundational calculus of the electoral college.)  

Finally a point about the general state of CONSERVATISM in the modern era.  I think, and have for a long time, that the basic disposition of so many on the modern right is informed by the fact that a long time ago we ceded the realm of higher education.  As a result professionals, businessmen, teachers and leaders in our community that don't hold purely statist values still see the world from a statist viewpoint and thus have an increased tendency towards being timid or apologetic as opposed to being bold in their expression of conservative values.  We have to seem reasonable or accommodating as not to be shunned in political discussion from the time that we can remember.  As such we subconsciously place a greater value on being agreeable than being effective.  So much so, that when we see someone actually stands up with the temerity to say NO we shouldn't rip the baby out of the womb, NO we shouldn't let China Steal our intellectual property, NO we shouldn't tie the hands of our soldiers on the battlefield, NO we shouldn't tax ourselves into serfdom, NO we shouldn't cede our national sovereignty to some Third world Caravan that we are more concerned with how he says things than the fact that he is boldly advancing our own ideology.

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