[newtonianrules]

You have to understand that the smartest people in the US didn’t vote for this administration and are just as horrified as everyone else with how inept and pathetic this administration is. Unfortunately we’re a minority, the senate’s design (Wyoming has the same number of senators as California even though a small city in CA may have more people than the whole state) and the US is so ridiculously gerrymandered.

Sorry everybody but we just have to wait this stupidity out.

[stouset]

This stupidity is not going to simply be waited out. It is becoming even further entrenched.

[ericmay]

There are a lot of issues in the American political system but the structure of the Senate is not one of those.

It was explicitly created as a way to balance sovereignty of the states against populism, such as that enacted by MAGA or leftists.

If you are a small state like Vermont, you don’t want to just have California, New York, and Texas dictating all rules and laws for the country by sheer weight of their population sizes. That is expressed in the House, but the Senate serves to balance that and ensure that populists don’t run roughshod over the country.

Without such a structure states with less population would either band together and create their own super states - and you can see where this leads, or they wouldn’t have agreed to join the US in the first place.

[wolvoleo]

> That is expressed in the House, but the Senate serves to balance that and ensure that populists don’t run roughshod over the country.

Yet that is exactly what has been happening twice now.

[ericmay]

Well, dissolving the Senate would just make that problem even worse if that's your viewpoint. "Twice now" seems to be a dig at Trump as though MAGA is the only populist movement, but ANTIFA/BLM and other, similar populist groups have taken hold of power in various forms as well, primarily in certain west coast states and cities.

[vkou]

Antifa and BLM have the political power of a mouse fart. Please don't compare them to the elephant in the room.

[ericmay]

Politicians with similar far-left populist political leanings have won elections in various cities and states. I'm just pointing out that removing the Senate empowers more of these populist groups with destructive and authoritarian ideologies.

[vkou]

When they'll get a president with a subservient congress elected twice, and go on to drive the country into a burning dumpster, I will be willing to entertain the possibility that the existence of the Senate protects us from their destructive and authoritarian ideologies. (Despite it demonstrably failing to do so, twice.)

---

(I'm not even going to bother to ask how a movement for police accountability is a 'destructive and authoritarian ideology'. I guess making cops not murder people for no good reason, and then lying about is called 'authoritarian' by FOX, but how can any rational person repeat that?)

[boustrophedon]

Yes, if anything the issue is that the House was capped in seats in 1929 and the population has tripled. Smaller states have an outsized representation in Congress currently.

[ericmay]

I'm strongly in favor of expanding the House. I failed to mention that in my original post.

[coryrc]

Vermonters might not want that because they hold outsized influence on the direction of the country, but then they shouldn't pretend to believe in Democracy.

So, yes, 50 million people should have more say over the country's direction than 1 million. We should stop pretending we have 55 mini countries, because the Supreme Court has stopped pretending we have a 10th Amendment.

[ericmay]

> Vermonters might not want that because they hold outsized influence on the direction of the country, but then they shouldn't pretend to believe in Democracy.

A Republic is a form of democracy. Having a Senate in the structure that we do is entirely consistent with democratic principles. To suggest otherwise is incorrect and counter to established definitions in the realm of political philosophy.

> So, yes, 50 million people should have more say over the country's direction than 1 million. We should stop pretending we have 55 mini countries, because the Supreme Court has stopped pretending we have a 10th Amendment.

Right, like how Donald Trump and his 75 million voters get to have more sway of Kamala Harris' voters (I don't recall the exact losing number)?

Nevermind that the state of Vermont is a sovereign entity in our constitutional republic. To modify this existing arrangement you give opportunity for certain states to leave (pro-Russian viewpoints try break up the US - don't fall for them!) since they are deciding as sovereign entities whether or not to participate in the Republic. If you are upset about the 10th Amendment or whatever then you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and inviting a Civil War or something similar. I say nah to that. We'll keep the existing system because it's pretty damn good.

[coryrc]

We are supposed to have a REPRESENTATIVE Democratic Republic, but it's no longer representative when you have orders of magnitude difference in representation.

> Right, like how Donald Trump and his 75 million voters get to have more sway of Kamala Harris' voters

They do in the Presidential race (and only because of FPTP and because we don't have i.e. approval voting), but they shouldn't control the House as well (because trump voters don't always vote R for reps).

States aren't sovereign entities -- they can't make agreements with foreign countries that isn't granted by Congress.

[ericmay]

> States aren't sovereign entities -- they can't make agreements with foreign countries that isn't granted by Congress.

This is incorrect. They can't make "agreements" with foreign countries but that's because of the Constitution they all agreed to, not because they aren't sovereign.

[coryrc]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereignty

> supreme power especially over a body politic

> freedom from external control

States aren't sovereign. The state legislatures don't even control their Senators anymore. The fiction of "collection of independent states" is just that: fiction. If nothing else, the American Civil War put an end to that. The Senate is just an unjust system which causes California to have to remit 33% of taxes to other states, while those are state's Senators vote to strip the rights Californians wish to have.

[oa335]

> It was explicitly created as a way to balance sovereignty of the states against populism, such as that enacted by MAGA or leftists.

that only works if the smaller states are not representative of the larger majority of the population.

instead, nowadays the smaller states are actually over-representative of the populist mass - e.g Wyoming is 80% white.

[ericmay]

You're misunderstanding the purpose of the Senate, whether Wyoming is 80% white or black or any other random race. The point is that it exists as a sovereignty vote. To take it away would be to cause a civil war or at least a dissolution of the United States because smaller states will walk away.

A lot of the anti-American, anti-Senate, &c. stuff is Russian propaganda precisely because to continue to sow division and encourage populism is to invite destruction and disunity upon the United States.

[oa335]

i understand the purpose of the senate and believe that bicameralism is a good idea and populism is generally bad.

you seem to not understand my point so ill give it one more try:

senate was indeed formed as a bulwark against populism, but the founders didnt anticipate a 68 to 1 population difference between the largest and smallest states (california vs. wyoming), nor the vast differences in composition of their populations. when a tiny fraction of the population holds that much disproportionate veto power, the senate no longer checks populism, it actively empowers a specific, rural populist minority to override the majority.

[ericmay]

No I understood your point, but you seem to be ignoring mine. The Senate wasn't just a bulwark against populism, it serves as a way to express the sovereignty of individual states in a way to balance states with very high populations from running roughshod over the rest of the states.

You have two things at play here:

1. Population size 2. State sovereignty

You're ignoring the 2nd, but they are inseparable when it comes to understanding the function and purpose of the Senate.

[oscillonoscope]

This might have made sense for the original 13 colonies but after westward expansion, it clearly does not. Most of the western state borders were formed for administrative reasons

[ericmay]

It still makes sense today. It's not perfect but it's a pretty good balance most of the time.

[oscillonoscope]

Congress is completely nonfunctional. It doesn't work. Americans are just too dedicated to American civic religion to admit it isn't working.

[ericmay]

Americans get the government they deserve. Changing how it works doesn't change the fundamental problem there - we'd just make changes and then those wouldn't work too.

I would be incredibly against any action to remove the Constitution and civil liberties we have today especially as populism is rising and needs to be squashed. It's very similar to calls from the far-right to destroy the FDA, DOE, or other federal institutions - we shouldn't get rid of them without clearly better alternatives.

[spaniard89277]

Waiting it out was the first strategy in Europe but it's clearly moving into something else.

[krior]

> Sorry everybody but we just have to wait this stupidity out.

And the rest of the world has to suffer the consequences. It has been incredible watching americans shrugging off any responsibility.

Insufferable hypocrites.

[mmooss]

> the smartest people in the US didn’t vote for this administration

Trump has support from SV and Wall Street leaders, and the whole Republican Party.

> gerrymandered

Trump won the popular vote, and iirc the GOP got more total votes for the House of Representatives. What about for the Senate? Sure NY and CA are big, but so are FL and TX.

[kashunstva]

Are SV and Wall Street leaders demonstrably the smartest people in the U.S.? Or just the greediest and most venal?

[defrost]

See: Borromean rings.