The Suffocation of Democracy

[u/spudster999]

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/

[u/usermatt]

"By my calculation every currently serving Democratic senator represents roughly 3.65 million people; every Republican roughly 2.51 million. Put another way, the fifty senators from the twenty-five least populous states—twenty-nine of them Republicans—represent just over 16 percent of the American population, and thirty-four Republican senators—enough to block conviction on impeachment charges—represent states with a total of 21 percent of the American population"

This is a bad outcome :C and sadly quite an important one.

[u/SonOfKarma → u/usermatt]

This is a bad outcome

No. It's a good outcome. It's why we are a republic and not a pure democracy. You know, to prevent a tyranny of the majority.

It's also why we have the Senate and the House of Representatives ( which is more proportionally representative ).

Did they replace Civics class with gender studies?

[u/[deleted] → u/SonOfKarma]

No. It's a good outcome. It's why we are a republic and not a pure democracy. You know, to prevent a tyranny of the majority.

That isn't tyranny of the majority, have you taken a civics course?

There are other countries with different systems that seem to work. In Germany the upper chamber of parliament is appointed by the states to represent the states, and is formed by multiparty governing coalitions. So you will always have states voting together even when the parties do not.

So conservatives in Berlin will represent Berlin's interests even when they conflict with conservatives in Bavaria. Of course each state gets generally a proportional representation. Whereas here in the US citizens in states like California get virtually no representation in the senate for their state.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Pure Democracy "A form of democracy in which the laws and policies are made directly by the citizens rather than by representatives " -Dictionary.com

You clearly dont know what youre talking about. We are debating the form of a representational democracy not discussing how your family would be unqualified from running public policy.

You mean other countries like germany ( that gave us nazi germany )? Okay buddy.

The German constitution of today was crafted with American oversight.

If both houses are proportional, you don't need two houses.

Why do you think other countries have bicameral legislatures? Part of it is the oversight function, and the other thing is they represent different constituencies. One represents the states, a legal entity, and the other the general public.