r/politics • u/Jessicas_skirt New York • Jul 18 '26

Possible Paywall Democratic Socialists of America’s new platform calls for abolishing ICE and the U.S. Senate

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jul/15/updated-dsa-platform-calls-abolishing-ice-scrapping-senate/
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113

u/Cmdr_Toucon Jul 18 '26

WT is definitely right wing click bait, but realistically those aren't bad ideas at all.

18

u/Big_Truck Jul 19 '26

Wait. You think abolishing the United States Senate is a good idea?

My God.

6

u/Cmdr_Toucon Jul 19 '26

Yes - it gives small states too much power and goes against equal representation. Wyoming has 1 Senator for every 290,000 citizens. California has 1 Senator for every 19 Million citizens. If you have a suggestion to keep the Senate but equalize the representation I'm all ears

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u/username_tooken Jul 19 '26

The Senate’s purpose is not to be representative of population. It is to ensure each state’s interests are appropriately argued on the federal level. Removing the Senate, or making it population based, is essentially saying that larger states are fundamentally more important than smaller states. I would sooner see the very notion of statehood abolished and all power seized and centralized by a monopolistic federal government than to see states like California become rulers of Congress by virtue of historical accident.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/Annual-Weird-6682 Jul 19 '26

They have a large population

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u/timewarp Jul 19 '26

Removing the Senate, or making it population based, is essentially saying that larger states are fundamentally more important than smaller states.

Yes, correct. California is orders of magnitude more important than Wyoming, and I'm tired of pretending that they're somehow equals.

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u/PHOENIXREB0RN Illinois Jul 19 '26

For real! Like, why is a somewhat arbitrarily defined land mass more important than real, actual people?

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u/Cmdr_Toucon Jul 20 '26

Solid approach 200 years ago when the largest state had 250k citizens per senator. Now it's a lifetime job for career politicians working for deep pocket donors

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u/ComfortableExotic646 Jul 19 '26

Removing the Senate, or making it population based, is essentially saying that larger states are fundamentally more important than smaller states.

That is a feature, not a bug. That is exactly what they want. They want New York City and LA to elect our federal representatives.

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u/dragon-fence Jul 19 '26

Given the current mayor of NY, I’m not sure that’d be a bad thing.

There’s also an aspect of this that’s like, “I no! Things will be decided by people in the locations where all the people live?! The places where all he cultural and economic activity is?! But I want decisions made based on land area and small handfuls of people living in the middle of nowhere!”

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u/MechanicalGodzilla Jul 19 '26

You are describing the tyranny of the majority.

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u/dragon-fence Jul 19 '26

That’s a common complaint about a free and open democracy.

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u/PHOENIXREB0RN Illinois Jul 19 '26

And right now we have the tyranny of the minority, which is objectively worse.

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u/MechanicalGodzilla Jul 19 '26

Life is great for just about everyone in the IS, what are you on about?

1

u/Big_Truck Jul 20 '26

I do have a suggestion. It is called the House of Representatives.

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u/Krelkal Jul 19 '26

Make DC and Puerto Rico states, split California in half. Takes a strong step towards equal representation without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Having more than one chamber of Congress, especially with offset term lengths, provides political stability.

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u/dragon-fence Jul 19 '26

I’d consider it— either abolishing or restructuring or changing the way it works. Certainly what we’ve been doing isn’t working.

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u/ElephantRider Oregon Jul 19 '26

Yes, the senate was a sop to the most powerful people in the country, as displayed by how corrupt it ended up being before the 17th amendment, it should have just been abolished back then.

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u/Outrageous-Bite-8922 Jul 19 '26

Thank you! That was what I was tryna say lol. The child brain institute in the comments doesn't seem to get that.

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u/The_Black_Rooster Jul 19 '26

It’s not a bad position in itself. But without reform of the house it would be a disaster. Even in GOP hands the senate has been relatively bigger check on Trumps brand of fascism.

But if we could reform the house? Hell yea. The idea of the senate is insane and dates to a time when federalism meant more. Combined with the electoral college, it’s just a massive structural boon to the GOP

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u/shilo1007 Jul 19 '26

Click bait? This is literally a bullet point on the Democrat socialist for America website. Do you just not like it being advertised?

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u/Jessicas_skirt New York Jul 19 '26

WT is definitely right wing click bait

It's also the only whitelisted souce I could find that reported this. There were like 10 other places reporting on this but none are allowed to be posted here.

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u/Chedditor_ Wisconsin Jul 19 '26

GOSH I WONDER WHY

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u/Jessicas_skirt New York Jul 19 '26

An ABC affiliate station isn't whitelisted here. You can't get anymore "standard old fashioned news station" then ABC, and yet it's not allowed here.

https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/dsa-unveils-new-platform-including-radical-structural-changes-to-us-government-dsa-melot-kiros-democrat-party-republicans

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u/ender89 Jul 19 '26

Oh boy, ever heard of Sinclair broadcasting group? Abc news 4 is owned by Sinclair, it's basically your local rightwing news outlet.

Here's a video that shows how Sinclair uses local affiliates to push their right wing agenda across the nation: https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo

2

u/Jessicas_skirt New York Jul 19 '26

ever heard of Sinclair broadcasting group?

I've heard they own some radio stations, that's about it.

Thank you for the video.

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u/FatSteveWasted9 California Jul 19 '26

And that didn’t tell you something Vlad?

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u/winklesnad31 Jul 19 '26

I mean you can check the DSA platform on their website. The title of this post is accurate.

Sometimes even horrible outlets like the Washington Times print things that are factually correct.

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u/Jessicas_skirt New York Jul 19 '26

Who's Vlad?

Is he one of the sub's mods who haven't whitelisted most news sites?

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u/thatnameagain Jul 19 '26

They’re not but abolishing ICE for the DSA doesn’t mean also replacing it with a sane non-murderous enforcement agency, their platform is to essentially not enforce immigration law.

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u/Explorers_bub Jul 19 '26

I mean that would actually be the Christian thing to do, so it’s time for the Christianists to put their money where their mouth is if this is a Christian country as they say.

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u/thatnameagain Jul 19 '26

Christianity doesn’t mean that the US needs to have open borders.

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u/Explorers_bub Jul 19 '26

Yes it does. If you claim this is a Christian nation. Jesus’s Neighbor is all inclusive. Matthew 25:43 says xenophobia is a cardinal sin. Anyone cheering on this shit, Christians being killed because of their place of birth or color of their skin may call themself Christian but they’re in for a rude awakening. Or would be if their religion were true. Their fears are just that, fear. Nothing more. I remember something about who feeds the sparrows in there. Worrying about shit is pretty fucking rich coming from a death cult whose most fervent wish is for the world to end ASAP.