Due to things like the electoral college, gerrymandering, vote suppression tactics, and senate representation to name just few, the US is not very democratic. Nor can these be fixed under current conditions because of the above list.
Senate representation is one thing. Requiring a supermajority to pass anything in an already unrepresentative house is just ridiculous, and absolutely does diminish the quality of "democracy" the US has. Especially considering the US house isn't particularly representative either, due to a combination of an absurdly low representative cap and gerrymandering.
The US is certainly more democratic than it was at its founding, when neither the president nor the Senate were entirely directly elected at all, but it's not even close to as democratic as most Americans appear to believe it is.
I assume you're just talking about the filibuster. What about the other super majority votes like ratifying treaties? Also, they could use budget reconciliation to pass a few things to bypass the filibuster.
I think many Americans have been calling it a democracy for shorthand and people forget that it's an adjective for "republic".
Imo, "it's not a democracy it's a republic" is a pretty empty statement, because there are no pure democracies (and they are likely to be completely impractical anyways). It seems to be a weird meme among Americans that hints at some kind of exceptionalism, but has very little in the way of practical implications.
For the most part, everyone in the world means approximately the same thing an American does when they say democracy ("a representative constitutional democracy, probably with some degree of regional federalism and bicameralism"). The US neither resembles a pure democracy or the republic the founders created at this point anyways, so it doesn't really matter. These terms are pretty fluid.
Pure democracy is basically never the goal anyways. It's not a bad thing for a system of government to be not entirely democratic, there do have to be checks on pure majoritarianism somehow, but the particulars of the US' democratic lacks seem to be both worse than most Americans imagine them to be, and also far more vestigial if not accidental than they ought to be (many were really there to help uphold slavery and/or prevent reconstruction from fully succeeding).
At this point, the net effect of the US' democratic failings is to create a tyranny of the minority, which can hardly be considered a better failure mode than a tyranny of the majority.
"At this point, the net effect of the US' democratic failings is to create a tyranny of the minority, which can hardly be considered a better failure mode than a tyranny of the majority."
Any source fir it only being tyranny of the minority? I see examples of tyranny of the majority too.
Tyranny of majority is an apt summation of the problems facing Nom white peoples but is not accurate when applied to religious groups seeking to impose their regressive theological practices on everyone else. That is in fact fascist and unconstitutional. Weaseling around these intents is a tired tactic of the radical right that they’ve been using for decades to sway the opinion of their poorly educated constituencies.
They do. The people get equal representation under the house. The states get equal representation under the senate. This is a feature to control populist movements as well as protect states' interests (which are also composed by the people, but this separate ensures that the culture of one set of state will not be imposed over the other set).
A person in Wyoming doesn't have equal representation in the house as a person in California, by quite a large margin. The house is not representative in practice.
As I said in another branch of this conversation, the use of the filibuster on nearly all bills of any significance (budgets and confirmations aside) in the Senate (and the chilling effect it's had on even bringing other bills to the floor) means that states are not represented equally either. The most obstructionist states have substantially more legislative power than the ones that want to actually pass bills. This is obviously more abstract, but it's pretty clear that in practice states are not equal in the senate.
The other states also have the power to filibuster things they don't like. This is feature not a bug. We want to fail open (liberty). The way to do that is placing safeguards that make it harder to pass laws, as they are generally imposing restrictions. The passage of any law will negatively affect some minority, the point is to make that group small and avoid straight partisanship via a modest supermajority.
Yes, there are some outliers and discrepancy in the number a representative represents. It probably should be adjusted.
I hope it's uncontroversial that, say, blocking a bill to ban slavery is not "failing open," for example, and the persistent effort to prevent slavery from being banned led to many failures in liberty?
When your main bulwark is making it hard to pass bills, all you've really done is make it so that the status quo is powerful. The status quo is not, by default, freedom.
Yes, point in time the status quo may not be the most free. The point is that starting from a more free point (the beginning) there were fewer laws that there are now. By having g that protection, how many additional restrictive laws have we prevented? The laws on the books are predominately restrictions, not freedoms/rights. So on a whole, it seems beneficial, even if there have been failings (we can say that about almost any institution).
> how many additional restrictive laws have we prevented
I mean, we will never know. Any answer to this question can only be speculation. I could as easily ask "how many expansions of freedom have we prevented?" And in this moment of political time I think there are at least a few. But that's also just speculation.
In theory it's supposed to be the constitution itself that prevents these abuses, not the crude instrument of legislative gridlock that prevents all change good or bad, especially in a moment like now or before the civil war where the two dominant political forces can't even see eye to eye on basic structures of power.
Much like, to bring it back to the original point, the Senate is already an unrepresentative body, it does not need the procedural filibuster (a unique creature among legislatures as it exists in the us Senate afaik) to make it one.
The speculation is supported by the numbers - restrictive laws far outnumber rights affirming laws, and thus it would on the net prevent more restrictions than freedoms. Especially since the structure of law is that are not unlawful tend to be legal.
The constitution is supposed to restrict what abuses? There's basically nothing preventing further restrictions in freedoms on many topics. Because the constitution is generally vague and conceptual, the courts have a lot of leeway to allow restrictions, even on well defined rights (rights are not absolute). There's little interest in calling a convention or otherwise amending the constitution it seems.
The senate is a representative body, for the states. The filibuster ensures that controversial bills pass with more than a simple majority. This is a feature which helps ensure that the affected minority is relatively smaller, protects states rights (it's up to the states if the feds dont regulate in moat cases), and help prevents waffling after every election that changes the simple majority.
The senate does not give people equal representation - regardless of the motivation for having it, this is objectively true.
You can say that you like a system that has this feature for states or it has certain other benefits and so on, but you can't say that it is equal representation because it is not.
As I said, the house gives people equal representation. A bill will not become law without passing the with through representation of the house. The only limit is that some things the house wants won't pass because the states don't agree.
If you truly want equal representation, then we have to go the direct democracy route since you will not have equal numbers of people under each representative. You also need to get rid of appointments by the executive (including rule making agencies), closed primaries, and provide universal voting including for felons and non-citizens.
So what is this argument for equal representation across the board? I don't see any benefit other than if you want populist movements to succeed based on the whims of the day and potentially at the expense of the minority rights (even more so than today).
The main point here is that state representation was necessary in order to create the country, and is likely necessary for the country to continue. I don't see any argument that supercedes this so far.
I understand how it works, and you agree that the senate does not provide equal representation for people, only the states. I'm not suggesting that the numbers for each representative be exactly the same because that's not achievable in practice. What I am saying is that the current system is much less democratic than it could be if either there was no senate or it had proportional representation. You may think that would lead to chaos, but I disagree.
It wouldn't lead to chaos. It could lead to states leaving the union if the senate were dissolved. It's happened in the past when states didn't want to be trampled and the divide seems large today.
But what is the objective benefit to removing the senate? The argument I'm hearing is just that it could be more democratic, but there are many changes that could make things more democratic. Some things are about fairness, like gerrymandering. But I don't see any benefit to removing the senate.
Laws like something that could curtail the worst of gerrymandering will never be passed because of the senate. The people that benefit from unequal and unfair representation will never vote to change them. Those people largely sit in the senate unequally representing the people that want positive change.
"Those people largely sit in the senate unequally representing the people that want positive change."
I thought we already covered that they represent states, not people.
By the way, what bill would they pass that would fix gerrymandering? I thought the states had the authority to draw their districts and it can be contentious as to what a good fix is.
And of course we have the same logic on the other side - that a party in power will do what they can to add to their power. We see that with laws about non-citizens voting (struck down), restoring/giving voring rights to groups that would disproportionately support them, and such.
> I thought we already covered that they represent states, not people.
We did, and that's the point.
> what bill would they pass that would fix gerrymandering? I thought the states had the authority to draw their districts and it can be contentious as to what a good fix is.
There is no bill, also my point. Also, it's only contentious to those who are deliberately attempting to gerrymander.
> that a party in power will do what they can to add to their power.
I agree with this part, its also my point; that is, undemocratic processes are self-perpetuating and self-strengthening.
> We see that with laws about non-citizens voting (struck down), restoring/giving voting rights to groups that would disproportionately support them, and such.
Interesting that that all your counter examples here are about giving people rights to vote. People having the right to vote is fundamental to democracy. Seems your view on democracy is of the 'only the right sort of people should be allowed to vote' variety, pun intended.
Then why are you misrepresenting it to mean something that it doesn't? Only one house is meant to represent people.
"Also, it's only contentious to those who are deliberately attempting to gerrymander."
Maybe for the general idea. But I can see implementation ideas being contentious. That's my point - the solutions are likely to contain biases, and there's going to be opposition to that.
"Interesting that that all your counter examples here are about giving people rights to vote. People having the right to vote is fundamental to democracy. Seems your view on democracy is of the 'only the right sort of people should be allowed to vote' variety, pun intended."
Please name a democracy that has unlimited voting rights. All democracies have some limits. Requiring that someone is a citizen is a damn low bar. Losing rights for felonies can be debated, but that's not too uncommon either. The purpose of those most basic restrictions is do that society does not become influenced by the criminal elements (you're banned from office too) or from outside influence. And guess what, those restrictions were democratically implemented. So please stop with the attacks and more righteous than thou attitude. Please state some argument beyond "fundamental".
>Then why are you misrepresenting it to mean something that it doesn't?
I didn't mispresent anything, I've been consistent and clear about my view of the senate.
>Please name a democracy that has unlimited voting rights.
It's not my position that voting rights should be unlimited. I was only pointing out that your own list of bad things were all about giving people who don't have a say about the government whose rules they must live by, a say in that government by vote.
>The purpose of those most basic restrictions is do that society does not become influenced by the criminal elements
This is historical laughable, the purpose of most restrictions is to limit the vote of marginalized groups, usually by race. For just one example, Step 1: Pass laws making weed a felony. Step 2: Focus all law enforcement efforts on marginalized groups smoking weed but let the kids in suburbs and college dorms smoke all they want. Step 3: Harshly punish marginalized groups by making them felons. Step 4: Strip them of the right to vote.
No you don’t understand, being more democratic in the abstract is more important than actual rights being stripped away or retaining the bare minimum environmental regulations on companies that are destroying the planet.
It’s sad how the flimsiest well-actuallys carry so much weight around here. Anyone making arguments around recent decisions being democratic has their head buried in the sand about how blatantly undemocratic the US has been since its inception.
Processes were followed and have been for generations. SCOTUS is just flipping the table over now for the benefit of biggest polluting industries, not the citizens, country, or the rule of law.
It’s only “clear” for people who accept paper-thin legal logic from a court with an obvious agenda. It’s only clear if you’re willing to slide down the slippery slope of the court stripping authority from all federal agencies they don’t like with the logic that the legislature needs to codify every email sent by an agency.
If you don’t like the EPA just say so, but please stop pretending like the Supreme Court is some real arbiter of logic and constitutionality. It has always been (even during liberal courts) an unelected political institution that justifies huge legislative changes with high-minded philosophical hand waving. Occasionally they throw in civil rights decisions for good PR with their aligned base, but even that’s on the chopping block with the current court.
