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.
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.
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/1hx1SqYSdjOa
:LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB: :LIB:
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:
:sicko-wistful:
:yea: