Remember when Hillary Clinton assured Americans she would accept the outcome of the 2016 election no matter what?

I do.

That promise, which she made only because Donald Trump wouldn’t, was one that unequivocally meant she would not call for any recounts, that she would not call on surrogates and supporters (like Barack Obama) to make reckless allegations that Russian cyber attacks played a role in the outcome, and she would not be a party to denigrating the integrity and sanctity of the election process.

Of course, we all know what that promise was worth. She’s been making rationalizations and excuses about her loss ever since.

It’s worth noting that the recounts she participated in resulted in Hillary Clinton losing more votes than she had originally – probably due to catching the proportion of the voter fraud she and her party and campaign systematically engaged in as a matter of course.

• After the election of 2016, there were more challenges made to the “fairness” of the Electoral College than America had seen in all previous years of American presidential election history – by Democrats. Next year, it will be even worse. The propagandists of the left, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) will make the case that the Electoral College is “anti-democratic.” There will be a major push for direct popular-vote elections of the president.

• The same forces as noted above will continue their well-funded war on voter integrity – meaning a propaganda war on the idea that voters should actually prove with a document at the polls, like a driver’s license, that they are eligible as duly registered citizens to participate in the election.

• And they will continue to cheat and steal elections whenever and wherever they can – as they did in 2020, explained in the movie “2000 Mules.”

Yet, the real lesson of the 2016 presidential election is that the Electoral College worked exactly the way it was supposed to work – saving us from a situation in which the largest state in the country dictates to the vast majority of the states who would be elected.

In case you missed it, all of the margin of Hillary Clinton’s popular vote edge over Donald Trump was a result of California’s lack of political and ideological diversity.

If you take California out of the equation, Donald Trump won the popular vote by 1.4 million.

California, for all intents and purposes, has become a one-party totalitarian state. Clinton took 61% of the vote there in 2016 – a significantly higher percentage than Barack Obama got in 2012. And, with the state’s embrace of illegal immigration, rampant voter fraud and widespread flight by long-time citizens and businesses, it will continually get worse.

You think I’m exaggerating? Think about this. In the only U.S. Senate race in California in 2016, it was a contest between two Democrats. No Republican even bothered to run. Similarly, six state Senate districts had no Republicans bothering to run. No Republicans bothered to contend 16 state assembly seats. No Republicans ran for nine congressional seats.

I tell you this as a California refugee myself. I lived there for 20 years. I saw California go off the cliff – politically, culturally, economically. I entered a California that seemed like the Garden of Eden in 1979, and I exited in a desperate panic in 1999. I’ve never looked back.

In 2016, California is the exception that proves the virtue of the Electoral College. Without it, voting Americans in other states would have little or nothing to say about who becomes president of their nation. The tail of California would be wagging the dog of America.

As it is, California remains the biggest Electoral College prize – 55 votes. Throw the national polls out the window. They are meaningless as long as California remains a one-party state with so little ideological and political diversity. Perhaps it should be broken up. It’s clearly too big and too broken.

But the Electoral College is working just like it was supposed to work because America is composed of 50 sovereign states. It’s the same logic that gave each state two senators and House delegations based on population. There’s a balance in America’s constitutional system – and it has proven its merits more than once.

It’s hard changing the Electoral College, because it would require a constitutional amendment or a constitutional convention. In either case, it requires the support of three-fourths of the states. Let me put it bluntly: As long as California remains in the union, the other states would be crazy to tamper with the Electoral College. It’s what keeps them “relevant,” for now, in presidential elections.

Of course, another option for Democrats is to add states, like Washington, D.C., or Puerto Rico. It’s always something.

They keep on pushing. They never give up. And neither must we.