[zanny]

Note that just because Republicans are wrong (and boy are they) does not make Democrats right. Democratic administrations, even with majorities to pass legislation, have done nothing to correct much of the anti-democratic processes in the US including elections being on a non-holiday Tuesday, absentee ballots being limited / restricted and operating state-by-state, the persistence of first past the post voting being the least representative form of election, the continued existence of the electoral college and senate, nothing to correct the loss of voting rights for felons, and more.

The Republicans are the wrong answer, but by and large and consistently for the last 80+ years the Democrats have not been the right answer. The US has a void (many voids, but this one in particular is most problematic) of a labor / workers party. Democrats are liberals and republicans are conservatives, both of which represent capital interests. This lack of representation is structurally foundational to US government and has been intentional since the founding over 2 centuries ago, and its also intentional that the only path to correcting it without violent revolution is a supermajority of states to compel an amendment to fix it. Which is in and of itself a nondemocratic process because a supermajority of states have a minority of the population.

[ethanbond]

I am no fan of the Democratic Party and strongly feel we need to overhaul our systems in a big, big way. Part of that overhaul cannot be, however, a period without democracy. It is much easier to maintain, modify, or destroy a democracy than it is to create one.

Here you have the Republican establishment, not insurgents, actively trying to disrupt Americans’ right to vote for their leadership.

[zanny]

This is presuming you have democracy now, when studies that show that congressional policy has no correlation to the interests of the people at large but a meaningful correlation to lobbyist money.

In a republic, representatives are meant to be selected as being a stand in for the majority of their electorates will and interests. In aggregate, such authentic representatives would then be proposing policy and instituting an agenda corresponding to the desires of a majority of the public at large.

Studies show a supermajority support in the US now for drug war deescalation, universal health care, military disarmament and an end to the Middle Eastern occupations, more equitable tax code, and more. Policies a substantial minority in congress are even remotely interested in considering let alone passing.

Its not much of a democracy if the people you elect, in aggregate, are not actually acting in the interests of their electorate. At all. Its a democracy in name, but a plutocracy in practice, and to be fair this was the structural intent of the founding documents. Having a senate is undemocratic. Having an electoral college is undemocratic. First past the post voting is undemocratic. Historically, huge restrictions on suffrage, the barriers put in place for newly suffraged peoples to actually vote, general disenfranchisement / difficulties in voting, the lack of regulation on campaigning, etc are in place to perpetuate and empower the plutocratic power duopoly regime incumbent political institutions exist to protect.

But thats where conservative mindsets come from in the first place. Content with the status quo and in fear of things going wrong that they don't want to try to do right. And its not an unfounded fear - centuries of evidence shows regime change never works, especially when its against the interests of a societies incumbent ruling class. But I just don't like maintaining the veneer delusion that America is anything close to truly democratic, or has ever really been.

[dane-pgp]

> Democratic administrations, even with majorities to pass legislation, have done nothing to correct much of the anti-democratic processes in the US including elections being on a non-holiday Tuesday, absentee ballots being limited / restricted and operating state-by-state, the persistence of first past the post voting being the least representative form of election, the continued existence of the electoral college and senate, nothing to correct the loss of voting rights for felons, and more.

How many of those issues could the Democrats have fixed without passing a constitutional amendment? Such a change requires more than a Democratic administration with a legislative majority.

[zanny]

Just from the list in my post:

> elections being on a non-holiday Tuesday

Simple majority legislation

> absentee ballots being limited / restricted and operating state-by-state

Really easy to correct with conditional budget funding on the basis of providing / enabling absentee / mail in voting, again a simple legislative majority on a budget bill

> the persistence of first past the post voting being the least representative form of election

First past the post isn't codified into the constitution. The only part that requires constitutional amendment is the electoral college but that can already be overriden with a combination of popular vote interstate compact and said statewide elections being held in an approval or score voting way.

This one requires policy change that is federal law currently mandating first past the post, but its not constitutional. Additionally this could be done in a way that removes federal simple majority requirements in federal elections and instead uses federal funding incentives to pressure states to adopt more democratic election systems because that would face a lot less blowback from anti-democracy interests.

> the continued existence of the electoral college and senate

This is the one that absolutely requires amendment. The electoral college can largely be made obsolete with the interstate compact but little can be done about how undemocratic the senate is. That is wholly intentional though - the senate was introduced to give less populated states more influence in government and to largely provide capital a numerically small wing of congress to control more easily monetarily.

> nothing to correct the loss of voting rights for felons

Felony voting rights are currently state by state, and again federal law or financial incentives could be used to pressure states to not deprive felons of their voting rights, or it could be codified as law with simple majority.

So of my stated points 4/5 can be done with just regular law, much of it done with just budgetary law requirements.