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.

  • sexywheat [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    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.