Time to emerge from my lurking (i can't use the common fed epithet anymore) and point out something people who haven't studied the late 19th century don't seem to get: Harvard is right. Technically speaking, the bill of rights didn't even have to apply to state governments until one group of supreme court justices started reading it that way, and you have to consider the political tensions of those times in order to understand why. A new court can easily go back to old precedents, it's how citizen's united won and how roe v wade will likely die. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
Also please remember that we didn't directly elect senators until the early 20th century, and coupling that with how we have artificially capped the house of representatives will have you find that America's nominal democracy is living on borrowed time.
Time to emerge from my lurking (i can't use the common fed epithet anymore) and point out something people who haven't studied the late 19th century don't seem to get: Harvard is right. Technically speaking, the bill of rights didn't even have to apply to state governments until one group of supreme court justices started reading it that way, and you have to consider the political tensions of those times in order to understand why. A new court can easily go back to old precedents, it's how citizen's united won and how roe v wade will likely die. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
Also please remember that we didn't directly elect senators until the early 20th century, and coupling that with how we have artificially capped the house of representatives will have you find that America's nominal democracy is living on borrowed time.