Comments of the Day: “The senate guarantees that minorities cannot be overruled by the majority… the majority can be and often times is overruled by the minority. Would you call that democracy? ” and “This can’t be fixed.”

@Jo Jamabalaya
You state that the senate guarantees that minorities cannot be overruled by the majority. But what you have now is that the majority can be and often times is overruled by the minority. Would you call that democracy? The Eu tokk different measures to ensure the protection of minorities while at the same time ruling out minority rule. If there are decisions made that do not need unanimous agreement, the there needs to a mjority of votes in the European Council that represent more than at least 50% or as I believe even 60% of the EU population. Apply that to the senate rules in the US and you have mitigated the current diproportinate weight of the the votes.

@Todd Huttunen The constitution was compromised by the need to sanction slavery, creating an ever growing bias toward democratic control of the country.

17% of the population controls a majority of the senate.  70% of the senate will be controlled by 30% of the population within a few decades.

The minority Republican party controls two branches of government, since the senate installs the judiciary.  The same minority of our population is additionally given an advantage in choosing the president and enacts gerrymandering to control the House. It appears likely that from the 21st century forward-that if a house divided against itself can indeed stand- a popularly elected president will be a rarity and the senate and judiciary will be “elected” by a shrinking minority of the population that likes to refer to the majority as “elites.”

The Republican minority’s M.O. is to act in anti-democratic bad faith to cheat the majority of Americans.  It refused to allow a popularly elected sitting president of the other party to appoint judges or a Supreme Court Justice.  The senate’s judiciary committee, repreenting a super-minority of voters, ran “Kangaroo” hearings and allowed the unpopular president who badly lost the popular vote to appoint the third branch of government. Those branches together codify voter suppression.  As a “kicker,” they enact  “tax relief”  that increases taxes in “blue” states.

This can’t be fixed.