[thoth]

>The 17th amendment[1] is another, which allowed for the direct election (and thus hyper politicization) of Senators.

The time before the 17th Amendment wasn't exactly all roses, that was the age of outright bribery of state legislatures for Senate seats. William Clark's famous quote "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale" was about this and the surrounding corruption of his election brought the 17th Amendment around.[0]

Listen to the 6th episode of the Constitutional podcast for some extra background, it is very interesting. Some states really wanted this because they were unable to even elect Senators due to political parties of the time simply not agreeing on anybody.[1]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Clark

[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/constitutional/