European democracies were designed relatively recently, and had several reboots. So their systems are more cutting edge.
USA was lucky to get democracy earliest and keep it throughout, but that has meant still being constrained by a 240 year old design.

And as much as we like to romanticize the brilliance of the founding fathers for the simplicity and longevity of the constitution, the truth is, they were politicians. They designed systems for the politics of their time. And at their time, the USA was thought of in plural.

During that time, people considered themselves Virginian or New Yorker first and American in the same way you think "European". So the constitution was written more like an EU constitution for that time, rather than for a "nation", in the sense that we understand the word today.

Wyoming having as much power in the senate as California seems ridiculous today, but made sense when you think of 1789 as 13 nation states trying to form a lasting "union", in the same sense as European Union. For it's first century, USA was written as "The USA are..." not is.

It was the civil war that created the idea of a national identity. Where you were American first and New Yorker second. Lincoln's thoughtful and lofty rhetoric played a big part in this. I often think he deserves even more credit for shaping modern USA than he gets.

Before him, no president or even founding father had talked of America as a larger personal identity than your state. Lincoln did it. Because he had to. If you're in a secession caused civil war, you have to convince your guys that you're all one team. He did. He won. He died.

Rather, he was murdered. So he could not finish what he started. Unfortunately, his VP choice, made purely with the PR intention of keeping "moderates" on his side, did not agree. And then the 1876 compromise meant the work was never really finished. The south sort of won.

But then the world wars happened and now it's unimaginable to not think of us as American first. And from that perspective, the electoral college looks bizarre. But think of it as a way to make sure even the littlest country has a say in picking EU President, and it fits.

For most of early American history, the president or federal government didn't really do much other than fighting wars and systematically stealing land from indigenous nations. The West for example, was largely autonomous for decades, with no business with DC except troops.

The role and influence of the federal government and along with it the strong nature of Americanness grew because of civil war, FDR new deal, WWII, LBJ great society, cold war, modern media, and if there was any doubt left, by winning the cold war.

So now as you wonder why the hell is this even a race when one guy has handily won the popular vote, remember that you're judging a 1789 design for an EU type thing by 20th century designs for nations built explicitly as one nation each. Thank you for listening to my Ted talk.

If any media outlet wants to pay me to turn this into a longer piece about why this weird system exists, reach out

And here's why the EC isn't going anywhere in our lifetimes. It was designed by some very brilliant legal scholars and politicians from the 18th century explicitly to make sure that the little guy has a disproportionately large say. Madison in particular. It's a resilient design.

To change it, you need to change the constitution. To change the constitution, you need 75% of the country on your side. That is not easy. Which is why the US constitution has only really been amended 17 times and not really in the last 50 years.*

*
First 10 amendments were done almost instantly after the constitution was written and were kinda unfinished business from the convention, so they don't count.
The 27th amendment is very trivial. The last real amendment was lowering voting age to 18.

To change the constitution to get rid of the electoral college, you will need opinion on that to be as widespread as people thinking 18 year olds should get to vote. Even that was done only by a generation that as 18 year olds got drafted to go fight a world war.

It may happen a century later. But at no time in our lifetimes are we going to convince half of these 48% who voted for Trump that they should change the constitution to get rid of the only design flaw in the system that even keeps them competitive.

So when all the other democracies in the world look at the US system and criticize it, it's like an iPhone 12 user finding flaws with the iPhone 4. Owned by someone constitutionally and politically forbidden from getting newer phones.