Democratic Reforms Held Hostage To Absurd Amendment Process

[eniwetok]

65. here's the problem as I see it...

It's odd that I was able to dispense with religion back when I was in highschool... and yet even as someone who was politically active in the 60's and 70s... and was even a polisci major, it wasn't until I was in my mid 40's that I was able to break free of that Civic Religion that protects the Constitution from real scrutiny. And once that happened, one can't put their head back in the sand again.

The system has strengths but it is also broken and responsible for many of our problems such as runaway corporate power and grotesque wealth inequality. What should we expect from a system that's antidemocratic, was based on class warfare (Madison's minority of the opulent) and designed to give wise elites a veto over the people at every turn? The system has no internal safeguards against the corruption of those elites, or against certain state suffrage formulas getting absurdly antidemocratic. I don't feel this connection gets enough study... and it seems off limits to even liberal think tanks. Not even a Bernie Sanders makes this connection and as we see here at DU... some just reject democratic principles in favor of that Civic Religion.

Demographic changes are making the system more antidemocratic and therefore more reformproof. Combine it all with the increased insanity of the GOP and Bush and Trump juntas being imposed on a nation that rejected them, and the trends are terrible and Dems better wake up and stop deluding themselves that demographics are on their side. In our system we have vast amounts of non voters that can be sucked into the GOP if new issues resonate.

If Dems refuse to try an reform the system... to bring it up to modern standards... they do so at their own, the nation's, and the world's risk.

So, sure... I don't feel morally bound by the Constitution, or the will of the dead... but morally by the principles in the Declaration Of Independence. Our electoral system is incapable of measuring the will of the people and the political is incapable of implementing it. It's about time the Dems as a party took the time to reconnect to some basic principles... such as democracy itself. Yup. the system is difficult to reform... and I'd say virtually impossible to reform in any serious way. If Dems give a shit, they have two options... to plan some 50-100 year strategy to overcome all the obstacles... even as the system gets more difficult to reform... or to push for a constitutional crisis and I can think of no other option that to have California threaten secession unless the system is made democratic. After all, it's those who live in Cal who most get the shafted in our system. They, more than anyone, have the moral right.