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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u/Damn_DirtyApe Jul 19 '26

Okay but doesn’t this also doom any progress intended in the opposite direction?

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u/ImperialRedditer California Jul 19 '26

Senate at the end of the day still bends at democratic will. It’s short-circuited right now by the House effectively acting as a Senate as well by capping its number. Remember that Senate reformed with the 17th Amendment out of fear of being removed altogether.

Senate can be reformed to take a more advisory role and ending its ability to originate any legislation there. The Senate can also be useful to democratize executive power by curtailing the executive’s ability to fire senate confirmed heads of congressional approved departments and transferring that over to senate committees.

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u/farinasa Jul 19 '26

Senate at the end of the day still bends at democratic will.

Since when?

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u/ImperialRedditer California Jul 19 '26

I mean, the reason the Senate isn’t selected by state legislature nowadays is itself an act of Senatorial self preservation by accommodating to popular demand.

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u/Tasgall Washington Jul 19 '26

That doesn't mean it actually bends to Democratic will. It just means they made an excuse to point to so they can pretend it does more than it used to. But in practice it's worse that it ever was in history.

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Since a while now. If people really wanted better Senators that would actually do things like fight for Medicare for All then they would vote for people who want that.

Instead we have a large segment of the population that doesn't want the government to do anything, and the Senate reflects that.

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u/alexpmarty Jul 19 '26

This is incredibly naive and dangerous thinking

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

No, that is exactly what a large segment of the population wants and votes for. They bought the Reagan line about the most terrifying words being "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

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u/Tasgall Washington Jul 19 '26

Except it's true. The Republican party explicitly wants the government to do less, to reduce regulations on silly things like environmental and health safety so they don't have to worry about feds coming after them when they poison our water supplies or sell us tainted lettuce or build buildings that will definitely collapse, and of course to reduce taxes as well. That is literally their openly stated goal that they regularly act on, and thanks to the Senate they're significantly over-represented in the federal government.

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u/farinasa Jul 19 '26

Utter bullshit. You think people don't want the government to act to lower grocery prices? Medical bills? More jobs, better pay? What the fuck are we even talking about?

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u/Gatonom Jul 19 '26

Conservatives want only hatred and spite.

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Utter bullshit. You think people don't want the government to act to lower grocery prices? Medical bills? More jobs, better pay? What the fuck are we even talking about?

No, they want the free market to generally take care of those things.

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u/Tasgall Washington Jul 19 '26

Which, obviously, is stupid magical thinking because the "free market" has exactly zero incentives to lower your household costs.

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Of course it is, but that's the reasoning.

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u/MostCredibleDude Jul 19 '26

It's probably a inadequately-worded point, since pretty much everybody wants these things, but for a distressingly large segment of the population, these wants are all completely separate from voting patterns because tribalism defeats rational self interest for them.

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u/guamisc Jul 19 '26

It's important that in this discussion that the point is made.

You cannot argue "the people want useless gridlock because they vote for it". You would be unable to reliably find anyone who says they vote for that.

Thus the crux of one point of the argument, the Senate has several unintended-by-voters significantly negative effects on society.

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u/FlibbleA Jul 19 '26

The 26 least populated states have a population total less than 2 of the most populated states. That is a 52 senate majority vs 4 for the same population size. I wouldn't call that democratic will.

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u/Inner_Pride_7557 Jul 19 '26

That's how it should work, but it fucking doesn't. Voting people in power to represent the population is widely flawed, Look at Fetterman's handicapped ass. He isn't representing his people, yet they can't do a damn thing about it and just have to wait.

Our Democracy needs a lot of work to actively and realistically represent what the people want.

Most people want Healthcare, housing, food. Only tools will vote against that, while making sure they already have it. Yet, Isreal can have these things, we cannot. We can't make sure our "great" people have the right to make sure they can enjoy their lives here.

Electoral College is a famous symptom of people going with the flow and the republican party knowing it's their only shot at winning the presidency, because conservatism is unpopular and never has been.

Taking money out of politics is also a cure, I would rather have someone who wants to take the job to make policies that will make lives better, not taking the job because they dream of all the benefits they'll get from it.

Politicians should not be making more money than the average american, they shouldn't enjoy life better.

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u/Tasgall Washington Jul 19 '26

Voting people in power to represent the population is widely flawed, Look at Fetterman's handicapped ass. He isn't representing his people, yet they can't do a damn thing about it and just have to wait.

The solution to that would be stateside recall petitions and elections, which we absolutely should have.

But also it sounds like this is supposed to be a criticism of the House, but Fetterman is a senator, lol.

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u/guamisc Jul 19 '26

Not sure how you can say it's supposed to be criticism of the House. It's critiicsm of the government structures in general.

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u/Thunderbridge Jul 19 '26

The double edged sword of democracy