Of course the US Senate is incredibly undemocratic and was set up to cement the power of the wealthy against people wanting to do stuff. It sucks. But at least I can understand the rationale given by people who would defend it. The 13 colonies were distinct entities, and the Senate was structured (on paper) to represent the interests of these distinct entities.
But every single state other than Nebraska has a "House" and a "Senate". And as far as I can tell, the Senate district boundaries are completely arbitrary. So what's the point?! No state other than maybe ones like CA or TX could have distinct subdivisions. It's either pointlessly redundant with the state House or broken up by a weird map that only serves to gum up the works (though I guess that's the point).
There in no excuse in 2023 for a form of government other than everyone's vote counting equally (with a possible exception for overweighting the votes of marginalized peoples, but that's such a far out possibility there's not much point in bringing it up). I can explain in detail how the Cuban electoral system is way more democratic than the US to an American, and they will just shut down and insist our system is more democratic regardless.
It's meant to be a check on the power of the legislature, meaning if somehow the plebs figure out how to legally conquer the House of Representatives, the rich still have the senate.
neoliberal democracy is mostly having 18 governing bodies who can say no to doing good stuff and like 1 that proposes it
Any honest political scientist would tell you it doesn't make sense, especially on the state level. The best argument I've seen for bicameralism is the Soviet system's congress of nationalities, but that allows for ethnic representation rather than arbitrary geographic representation
You already know that the system lets wealthy people have their own mini fiefdoms, which is probably the reason most states use it
I just want to add that considering this it's especially funny when people call states "laboratories of democracy". Bruh the only experiments these copycat states are doing is how to most effectively kill people before ramping it up federally.
set up to cement the power of the wealthy against people wanting to do stuff
I mean you answered your own question
Another aspect is the Amerikkkan Founding Fathers Fetish, where Amerikkkans truly believe that the Founding Fathers™ were geniuses and the best we mere mortals can do is to LARP as them and replicate their systems as closely as possible
As I've mentioned before on Hexbear (the world's largest social media website):
It’s amazing to me that those bullshit states have just as much power in the Senate as like California and New York.
Canada’s Senate is ridiculously undemocratic and yet somehow America manages to make theirs even worse. We just have a bunch of federally appointed failsons with life-long make-work pretend jobs and lavish retirement pensions, but America allows the most backwards dipshits from Podunk, Bullshit, NowhereVille to actively and aggressively resist progress for the rest of the country. Amazing.
Edit: I will say one (1) kind thing about the Canadian senate: IIRC when cannabis legalisation happened the government initially wanted to completely prohibit people from growing their own at home. The senate pushed back and said that was ridiculous and forced the government to allow a measured amount of home cultivation. So, in my entire life, they have done (at least) one good thing. However, their main function of acting as an emergency break if a workers party were to take control of the house of commons still stands.
True, but the People's Party likes to add "and that's a good thing" right after saying he was a corrupt racist drunkard.
Liberal me :solidarity: Leftist me
Telling "redneck" CHUDs that the founding fathers would have hated them.
(To clarify, I don't mean "redneck" as an insult, but moreso as a way to describe a section of the working class that is loyal to a project that is even hostile to them as they are treated as tools to eventually be discarded at best.)
Gonna plug some relevant media here:
American Democracy is Doomed by Matt Yglesias
Chapo Trap House episode 329 (premium episode, wish they would unlock it to the public)
Yeah, a lot of electoral stuff in the US needs to be updated to reflect the fact that geographic distinctions don’t really matter anymore, what with stuff like cars, airplanes, the internet, and an internationalized economy. Politics is all about ideology now.
American Democracy is Doomed by Matt Yglesias
I'm guessing a :heartbreaking: moment
yeah kinda. I’d like to know if there was anyone less insufferable who made the same observations/analysis earlier than 2015, so that I could plug their work instead.
Here's a black wolf mirror of the full episode:
https://voca.ro/1hx1SqYSdjOaAmerican Democracy is Doomed by Matt Yglesias
:LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB:
Chapo Trap House episode 329 (premium episode, wish they would unlock it to the public)
good news, here it is on youtube (well most of it I think the intro has been clipped)
Chapo Trap House: Matt Christman on the History of Bipartisan Politics in America (from 329)
Yeah, this is a few minutes shorter than the original pod audio (linked below). The first 25-30 seconds are edited out, and there's about a three-minute bit cut off at the end after he mentions using labor militancy as a means to coerce concessions out of the government -- it starts with the phrase "if Bernie wins..." so you can imagine why it got edited out. :punished-bernie:
Because no one with influence or power said, "hey wait this isn't democratic" when they were being created.
Is there any literature out there about this subject? Obviously the end result is the entrenchment of existing power, but I wonder what people thought the intent was when the state constitutions were written. Especially the later on states, like Arizona or Alaska, which had a bunch of other states to study and try to improve on.
Because of the Romans. They had a Senate; ergo we must have the same thing. And columns! Gotta have columns. And fasces.
