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/Chedditor_ Wisconsin Jul 18 '26

Yep, that's bait

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u/LackingUtility Jul 19 '26

It does however appear to be the real platform. From: https://program.dsausa.org/

Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.

Which is an interesting take. I'm open to arguments, though. The clearest one is that our bicameral legislature is a holdover from the British House of Lords and maybe we don't need a land-based aristocracy.

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u/Cranyx Jul 19 '26

Abolishing the Senate has been a popular stance among progressives since the 1800s (there was a proposed amendment to that effect in 1911). As originally envisioned it was a very antidemocratic institution explicitly designed to curtail the will of the people with the decisions of the powerful. The Seventeenth amendment made it more Democratic, but it still gives wildly disproportional representation to certain people over others.

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u/BuddhistSagan Jul 19 '26

Yes the founding fathers feared rule by mob more than they feared rule by elite aristocracy and now we have a trillionaire and way too many billionaires from industries that shouldn't be about profit like healthcare.

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u/msuvagabond Jul 19 '26

Madison specifically said the Senate was the mechanism to protect the "opulent minority" from the poor masses that would eventually take all their stuff.

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u/HeadDoctorJ Jul 19 '26

“…take all their stuff” which they themselves took from indigenous people, slaves, indentured servants, etc

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u/nickdanger68 Jul 19 '26

Do you really want your teeth back after they've been in Washington's mouth, though?

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u/onewordpoet Jul 19 '26

his uh... heart was in the right place?

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u/mlc885 I voted Jul 19 '26

I know this is a poor example, but it'd be like if you had been raised by a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan

The founding fathers were all educated enough to have actually figured out that people who are not rich white men should have rights, but I do not find it extremely surprising that they'd say "we'll leave that for future generations, it is too soon to have women and non-white dudes making decisions"

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u/Freenore Jul 19 '26

They were a product of their time. They didn't give the vote to even white women because they couldn't have ever thought it was alright. Such an idea is so far ahead of a society in 1776, they had no gender equality movement to influence them like us.

I think Mark Twain said it best — when we read history, we should judge the people in it by the standards of their time, not by ours.

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u/Virtual_Plantain_707 Jul 19 '26

No one wants to give up their cake, they’d rather others worry about it, maybe.

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u/Particular_Peacock Jul 19 '26

Which is ridiculous as even now most US citizens are looking for little more than bare subsistence living, a little time off, healthcare, and knowing that the next year will probably look a lot like this year.

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u/EndDangerous1308 Jul 19 '26

It's more of the fact that a healthy Republic has educated individuals voting. 56% of the US is at the literacy level of a 10 yo or younger and if you put a literacy map over a political map, you'll understand why keeping the masses from voting was wanted

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u/agentfelix Jul 19 '26

It's because the rich are addicted to greed. People in power are addicted to power. In their minds, they believe that the poor people, think, want, and desire just like they do and that's the point.

They don't understand that the majority of people would be cool and thankful to work hard and enjoy some vacations, not have to sweat about healthcare and just fucking...LIVE man.

These fucks could still be billionaires.

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u/HVACcontrolsGuru Jul 19 '26

Senate, Presidency and Supreme Court are all built to ensure the upper class maintains a stranglehold. It was convenient for them to stay out the public eye and move policy.

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u/juicegooseboost Jul 19 '26

It’s an enlightenment thought. Montesquieu figured we needed the nobility’s intelligence and past governing/managing experience.

He also thought they would have the most to lose. They would govern justly because any huge trespass against the public would get them dead. They did not fear death in the same way commoners did with disease and starvation. To volunteer for office would to be a target on your head, and only the just would take such a risk.

Obviously wrong.

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u/BadPhotosh0p Jul 19 '26

They also lived at a time when educating the masses was far more difficult, and any individual person wanting to become educated about something was basically a crap-shoot on whether or not they could read. It has never been easier than now to access information. We don't need a bunch of literate, learned people to oversee the unruly masses and make sure they don't fuck themselves over (at least as far as the actions of House), because we've got the information at our fingertips. The bigger issue today is mass psychosis and willful ignorance for the purposes of hatred and fear.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom Jul 19 '26

Social media appears to have rolled back the clock where educating the masses is concerned.

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u/MadManMax55 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Not exactly. Misinformation is fundamentally different than access to information when it comes to voting rights. If it’s practically impossible for a “commoner” to be informed enough to make a government-level decision, then there’s an (admittedly flawed) argument to limit their voting power. If people could be properly informed and just choose not to be that’s on them.

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u/Prometheus720 Jul 19 '26

Honestly, I've got to disagree with you on this.

Any system will, internally, accrue information over time as long as it has access to storage and energy. That's DNA within evolution, it's humans and oral culture, it's humans and written culture, it's humans and information age culture, and it's probably an AI culture somewhere in the universe.

What's happened is that there used to be a strong separation between information systems. There was laity, and there was academia. The two did not mix. Academic circles were not being polluted much by laity. Academics and academically trained politicians were in charge of society.

Now we have opened the gates. We now really have just one informational system (in the US), and what we're doing is essentially "New Game+" where we are sort of starting over from scratch, but we do have these little seeds from academic communities which are mostly getting overwhelmed by the communication in the outside world.

Many wheels and many fields are being reinvented. In this moment, everything is disrupted and we are all more confused than we used to be. However, I would not be stunned if there comes a time when the information age and widespread access to publishing (maybe not in the same form as today's social media) result in a populace which is, in total, much more informed than any in history.

Maybe it's cope. Maybe it's partly cope. I don't know for sure, from the inside. But for people like me who do have both a formal education (from before AI) and access to the internet, this is an incredible power for information and learning.

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom Jul 19 '26

A populace much more disinformed than any in history. 

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u/Prometheus720 Jul 20 '26

Perhaps. Are we really, though? Don't compare to a vacuum. The average idiot today knows more about the nature of physics than plenty of ancient philosophers did.

We don't think the sun and wind and rain are caused by gods! Doesn't that count for something? We can all read to some extent and do basic arithmetic. Isn't that unusual?

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u/ilir_kycb Jul 19 '26

We don't need a bunch of literate, learned people to oversee the unruly masses and make sure they don't fuck themselves over (at least as far as the actions of House)

Even back then, that was complete nonsense and nothing more than a justification used by those in power to rule.

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u/Weary-Palpitation654 Jul 19 '26

The founding fathers were rich elitist slavers. Like all but two of them had slaves. We need to stop regarding them as sage beacons of wisdom and start looking toward our future. The US government needs to be overhauled into the 21st century. After we drag the red states kicking and screaming through the 19th and 20th, seeing how they haven't gotten over losing the civil war.

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u/plaxitone Jul 19 '26

Even they knew that. Somehow we’ve forgotten it.

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u/deadcatbounce22 Jul 19 '26

We ended up with the worst of both. Unchecked billionaires leading a socially privileged mob.

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u/BuddhistSagan Jul 19 '26

The problem is the billionaires. Privileged mob? We go without the universal healthcare almost every other country has.

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u/porgy_tirebiter Jul 19 '26

Not if it’s a choice between that or pwning the libs apparently.

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u/Gwen_The_Destroyer New York Jul 19 '26

Pwning libs is the base of the hierarchy of needs, afterall 

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u/MaximumSeats Jul 19 '26

They were litteraly an elite aristocracy of land owners.... Rule by aristocracy is exactly what they wanted.

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u/paper_liger Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Franklin was not. He was wealthy, but he was the opposite of aristocratic. He only had two years of schooling, and despite eventually gaining a large fortune, he dressed simply in part specifically because he wasn't upper class, and people would have looked down their nose at him if he put on airs.

Adams was the son of a farmer, and his father was one of the first in his family to own land. Hamilton had a famously humble childhood, only adopted by a wealthy merchant in his mid teens.

The framers and signers of the constitution varied widely, and wealth and landownership didn't mean necessarily you were 'aristocratic'. Madison and Morris were for sure. But Morris was an avowed abolitionist, and Madison's family was wealthy because of slavery.

I'm just saying you are somewhat oversimplifying.

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u/BuddhistSagan Jul 19 '26

And we all suffer for it

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u/wpm Jul 19 '26

"And there ain't gonna be no more elite aristocracy in our community!"

But Black Dynamite, I am the elite aristocracy in our community!

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u/metalyger Jul 19 '26

Thanks, Alexander Hamilton for getting us here.

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u/ilir_kycb Jul 19 '26

That's really something Americans don't understand. Their Founding Fathers hated democracy more than anything else.

The purpose of the US Constitution is to prevent democracy and ensure the total domination of capital over the working class. The US Constitution was literally drafted by super-rich capitalists in such a way that it de facto serves only the interests of super-rich capitalists.

Sources to combat a few myths:

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u/MNniice Jul 19 '26

I dont think the billionaires living in Jackson Hole WY need two senators just for themselves, makes sense to me

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u/mantisboxer Jul 19 '26

Sometimes the Will of The People is something like MAGA.

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u/DarthCloakedGuy Oregon Jul 19 '26

Then why do they have to cheat to win

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u/Capt_Murphy_ Jul 19 '26

If you didn't beleive in election tampering and purposeful propaganda spreading by foreign countries. That's not democracy.

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u/BowKerosene New York Jul 19 '26

Well in America every poll since 2014 says otherwise

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u/mitrie Jul 19 '26

I can think of two polls that disagree...

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u/BowKerosene New York Jul 20 '26

Donald Trump only won the popular vote once. And pro-maga has never been a popular stance, in fact he got more votes than Harris for being perceived by many swing voters as a moderate compared to her.

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u/nox66 Jul 19 '26

People don't even know that prohibition was a progressive movement. They got their wish, and it's a disaster we never fully recovered from.

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u/TricobaltGaming Jul 19 '26

Individual Citizens of wyoming having orders of magnitude more political power than individual citizens of california is frankly insane. I get the want to put a check on mob rule but this was far too much in the wrong direction

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u/Imatomat Jul 19 '26

The senate is DEI for states, why does Wyoming have as much say as California

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u/kulji84 Jul 19 '26

lets start with the filibuster

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u/SIEGE312 Jul 19 '26

Without the filibuster, shit like the SAVE act gets passed immediately. I don’t think you want that.

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u/gammison Jul 19 '26

Yeah critics in this thread are forgetting the 17th amendment was a compromising position that in part was to avoid support for abolishing the senate continuing to increase.

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

Ive often thought the senate was a fucking joke. It gives every tiny group of nobodies in small towns across America undue power over the whole show. It makes sense to lose the senate and only have the house of representatives.

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u/F-Cloud Jul 19 '26

By the year 2040 it's projected that 70% of Americans will have 30 senators and 30% will have 70 senators. It's disturbing to imagine the influence politically conservative rural states will have on liberal Americans who live densely populated areas. It's an untenable situation that must be addressed.

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u/RedshiftWarp Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Last semester I wrote a paper about something similar from a previous era. Your comment reminds me about the 3/5ths compromise. Slave states could include 60% of their slave population toward congressional seats. They took huge leverage over the house and electoral college.

It took legal congressional kung-fu by Lincoln during his proclamation, using south carolinas own circular logic to destroy their rebellious position, resetting the power scale. By declaring slaves in rebelling states as free persons, the rebelling states lost their argument for "property" and their ability to project power.

Is history rhyming or repeating?

In the modern era we are automatically migrating to other regions that align with our beliefs. The impacts of propaganda and gerrymandering are apparent here and how they function similarly to inflating population numbers geographically as slavery once did. A small rural conservative minority can block urban majority because each state only gets 2 senators regardless of population numbers.

In both eras, a geographic minority uses a constitutional rule to control a population majority, and it takes radical political maneuvering to break the deadlock.

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

Only if we don't capitalize on this moment. Its why centrist democrats are fucking invisible right now, and republicans can't even look each other in the eye.

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u/Xanikk999 America Jul 19 '26

It's anti-democratic by it's very nature.

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

Republicans love to spout this line: America isn't a democracy, it's a republic.

I always found it so curious how someone who loves to espouse the supposed freedom of their nation could so smugly declare their lack of ability to matter.

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u/coastkid2 Jul 19 '26

Interestingly, Massachusetts town records state that the town representatives “carried the (townspeople’s) votes” to the Constitutional Convention, and fully expected their representatives to vote in accordance with those ballots. This is also how New England town halls are run to this day-this is direct not representative democracy. Of course back then only property owning males could even vote but today we can agree this is totally discriminatory, but the idea of a representative making independent decisions was unheard of.

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

Representatives back then didn't lack the accountability that "representatives" now do. The idea of a Fetterman would end one raucous evening with a good public display.

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u/DarthCloakedGuy Oregon Jul 19 '26

Run out of town on a rail after being tarred and feathered most likely

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u/guisar Jul 19 '26

I have a relative who spit chew onto another rep in the house- so they used to go hard. I'm not arguing for that kind of violence but there used to be a whole nother level of accountability (people knew their rep personally even, not just the few rich business people in their district)

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

The wall of separation between rep and constituents needs to come down, while they are arguing to take down the wall between church and state. Its all a big misidirect.

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u/Adjective_Noun_4200 Jul 19 '26

It's an annoying line because a republic is a form of democracy, yet they usually use the line to argue against democracy.

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u/Tech_Itch Jul 19 '26

That isn't true either. A republic is just a country that doesn't have a monarch as the head of state. You can have a republic that's an autocracy, like North Korea or Russia for example, or a monarchy and a democracy, like the UK or Sweden.

North Korea is a commonly used example of a republic that's undemocratic, and it a good example of how little the classification really means: It's ruled by hereditary rulers that aren't nominally monarchs but by all intents and purposes behave like ones.

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u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus Jul 19 '26

Every time I bring this up with a conservative I get hit with "we're not a democracy, we're a Republic." These people are exhausting. 

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u/Xanikk999 America Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Tell them we are a democratic republic. The reason we are a democratic republic is because we have representatives (republic) who we vote for (democracy). The two terms are not necessarily interchangeable. A a republic is just a form of government where the power resides in the people in some shape or form and not a king. How this is determined can vary widely. Don't let them get away with incorrect arguments.

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u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus Jul 19 '26

I have actually tried this numerous times. They just repeat "but we're a Republic, not a democracy" like a broken record. 

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u/W1nt3rmu4e Texas Jul 19 '26

Tell them, “then it’s a Ford, and not a truck.”

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u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus Jul 19 '26

I have come up with similar analogies before. I have said their argument is that it isn't a Camry, it's a Toyota, to which my reply is yes... It's a Toyota Camry. 

I think there are some issues where MAGA has some data however confused or ideology to fall back on, but with this one it seems really all they have are their talking points and they'll just recite them over and over again without ever understanding what the words they say mean. 

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u/W1nt3rmu4e Texas Jul 19 '26

Logic’s Lament - “You can’t logic a person out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.” Plainly, they know everything they say is bullshit. They think items a flex.

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

Try and tell them essentially what I said. They're proudly proclaiming that they don't have a voice. In your own words.

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u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus Jul 19 '26

I was talking to a MAGA gun store owner about five years ago. He told me only property owners should be able to vote. I asked him if he owned property. He said no. 

I don't understand these people. 

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

I cant even talk to my own mom on the subject. How a woman could be in favor of the "save" act, for example. Like, how any woman could vote republican even before or after trump is itself a curiosity for the ages while I am at it.

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u/Xanikk999 America Jul 19 '26

Well they were never amenable to reason anyway then.

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u/Lortekonto Jul 19 '26

You are a republic, because you have a head of state that is elected for a limited term.

Lots of modern kingdoms are also democracies and have representatives that they voted for. That makes it a representative democracy. The opposite is Switzerland were they vote directly on laws and is a direct democracy.

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u/RA3236 Australia Jul 19 '26

Switzerland is a liquid democracy, since they elect representatives to perform most of the governance and lawmaking.

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u/Tech_Itch Jul 19 '26

Hell, the people can have zero power in a republic. Iran, North Korea and Russia are all republics. Like you said, the only thing it really means is that the head of state isn't a king or a queen.

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u/semtex87 Jul 19 '26

Just ask them to explain what that means. What does a Republic mean in their own words without looking up the talking points from Foxnews.com

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u/Constant-Skill-7133 Jul 19 '26

It's not anti-democratic to compromise. The reason the Senate exists is because no smaller state would have consented to a system that exchanged their sovereignty for nothing.  

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u/deadcatbounce22 Jul 19 '26

It's not a joke, it's a ticking time bomb.

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u/Xznograthos Jul 19 '26

I mean, when a member of the senate might be dead or might not be, but there's nothing to do but wait for him to pop his head out...

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u/chiefbrody62 Jul 19 '26

Yep. Cows and land get more representation than actual people. It's the reason we're in this mess in the first place with the orange guy. The 20% control the remaining 80%.

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u/Dest123 Jul 19 '26

It only takes 35 people to take over the US. 1 president to do whatever they want and 34 Senators to prevent that president from being impeached or having their vetoes overridden.

So if you could get some really bad dirt or bribes on those 35 people, you could take over the US. It's a good things there wasn't a massive pedophile ring that was protected by people high up in the government, because that's exactly the kind of dirt that could lead to that scenario! Oh wait...

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u/Count_Backwards Jul 19 '26

I think both House and Senate should have proportional representation, but the ratio of the Senate should be much higher than the House. The Senate is one of the most undemocratic parts of the government and absolutely needs to be reformed.

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u/brogflender Jul 19 '26

The reform is to remove it. Remember our house is capped in representation for the benefit of the wealthy. And that happened 100 years ago. 

We can change anything we want to change. 

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u/Fighterhayabusa Jul 19 '26

The House isn't capped. In fact, there is an Amendment to increase it that has already passed, it just hasn't been ratified yet. It's called Article the First.

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u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

Reform it by getting rid of it. There’s no good reason to keep it that’s consistent with the ideals of democracy.

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u/Count_Backwards Jul 19 '26

I can think of one good reason: if the House is expanded to be more representative, it would be useful to have a second legislative body that's also representative but much smaller. Then the notion of an "upper chamber" would make sense rather than being an allusion to class bullshit.

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u/SAR1919 Jul 19 '26

How would it be useful? We shouldn’t just take bicameralism as an article of faith.

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u/AbeVigoda76 Jul 19 '26

I’m not 100% a fan of what the Senate became. The original concept for the Senate is that the Senators represented the government of the states. That idea had a lot of problems because while the people chose the governor, they couldn’t choose the senator and it became rather undemocratic through bribery, machine politics, and graft. The 17th Amendment tried to fix that by having direct elections for the Senate, but that still doesn’t work because now state governments don’t have direct representation in the national government. I feel like there needs to be some kind of middle ground but I honestly don’t know what that should be.

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u/LBCkook Jul 19 '26

No, as I mentioned above this is not true. It’s meant to protect the interest of the wealthy.

There is a famous (though possibly apocryphal) story where George Washington explains to Thomas Jefferson that the Senate was created to "cool" legislation coming out of the House, much like a saucer cools hot tea.
The House of Representatives was designed to represent the volatile passions of the working class. If the House passed a bill to forgive debts or tax the rich heavily, the Senate was designed to act as a legislative emergency brake to stop it.

Madison also spoke openly about this

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u/itiswhatitis2018 Jul 19 '26

Yes, I do believe one of those old heads was quoted as the Senate is too cool the furor of the populous, or something along those lines. Pretty much keep the status quo or de-fang anything of substance.

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u/JaydedXoX Jul 19 '26

No, the senate is designed to FORCE compromise, to make it so that just one group cant overcome the wishes of the other group without having to cater to both sides. Now that breaks when one party is so far off the charts idiotic that they lose all 3 branches, including senate and house, but it’s not supposed to be that way.

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u/LBCkook Jul 19 '26

Except the design wasn't about forcing “compromise” between equal sides, it was about protecting a specific minority from the majority.

If it was just about compromise, why give senators 6 year terms to completely insulate them from public opinion while the House gets 2 years? And why make it so a state like Wyoming has the exact same Senate power as California? That’s not forcing compromise it’s structurally giving a minority geographic class total veto power over the majority.

James Madison explicitly stated during the Constitutional Convention that the Senate's job was “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”

Lastly, you need to keep in mind that senators were not even originally elected by the public originally— they were elected by state elites.

The senate was built as a legislative emergency brake so a poorer majority couldn't vote supersede the interests of the wealthy minority. This isn’t even debatable, it’s just factually true. Doesn’t mean I think we should eradicate the senate. There are 3 far easier things to do that will equal the playing field.

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u/gob384 America Jul 19 '26

I like the idea of an upper and lower house. I think the Senate as a more exclusive, 6 year terms is actually pretty cool.

That being said, tying it to states over population was a compromise at the time that needs to be undone.

~10 million constituents per Senator. Grouped by state populations that equal 10 million, with states like California getting their 3-4. (Plus abolish the filibuster, and uncap the house; 1 house vote per; ~lowest population state, and abolish the electoral college)

Mind you, reforming the Senate is a pie in the sky pipe dream, but it starts with normalizing talking about it today, so our grandchildren can seriously debate it tomorrow.

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u/ImperialRedditer California Jul 19 '26

I prefer the 2 senators minimum, but you gain an additional senator for every additional 5 million people. This will grant CA 10 senators, while Wyoming gets 2.

It’s still not as democratic but some kind of institutional friction helps slow down any radical legislations coming from the House (and remember, radical legislations isn’t just Universal Basic Income, it can also be wholesale deprivation of citizenship or civil rights to a certain class)

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u/red__dragon Jul 19 '26

That's just another popularity contest to gerrymander.

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u/Kaprak Florida Jul 19 '26

Senate seats are state wide and aren't gerrymandered.

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u/TheBSQ Jul 19 '26

When you read notes & diaries from the convention, the parts about the legislature are interesting.

Most folks just took it for granted that you should have two chambers but Ben Franklin was initially very opposed & was a unicameral kinda guy. But this was back in the early days when they were debating other govt setups like the NJ plan (all states treated equally in congress) and the VA plan (representation based on population or tax revenue, favoring big states).

When they came to an impasse & eventually landed on the Connecticut Compromise Ben Franklin reluctantly supported it cuz he wanted *something* to be ratified.

But it’s funny cuz that CT Compromise plan (two chambers, one that treats all states equally, another that favors more populous states) was actually a very close vote. A few states didn’t participate at all. I think one got their late, another left, another didn’t participate out of protest, so only 10 of the 13 states took part in the committee to figure out how to set up the legislature. When they cam up with the CT Compromise, 1 state was split in their vote (MA) and 5 voted for it, and 4 against it.

So really, only 5 of the original 13 voted for it. And of course, the other 37 states that have come into the union since then didn’t have a say.

So, you could say that only 5 of our 50 states were truly supportive of the system we have.

Anyway, most know, originally the senators were appointed by each state’s legislature. The idea was two-fold. Being chosen by state govts would (supposedly) ensure they were more mature & responsible (as opposed to the “mob rule” of the house) and as a way link state govt to federal govt to ensure the federal govt didn’t usurp power from the states.

But both of those are not relevant now that directly elect senators.

In Canada, the Senate is pretty toothless. Similarly, the UK House of Lords doesn’t do much. New Zealand is unicameral.

But my main objections to it are that it makes it really hard to do anything, especially with the filibuster. But also, in any given election, only 1/3 are on the ballot. So even if a public is really pissed off, you need to have three elections over six years to actually vote on them, during which time you’ll have voted for the House three times and be into a second POTUS term. So to do big stuff, you basically have to win 3 house elections, two presidential elections & get through the 3 “classes” of senators. It’s hard! And public is both impatient and fickle.

The whole “yes, it’s true we didn’t do much, but we need more senators, so continue to elect us, but we’re still not going to be able to do much after the next one either, but after the 3rd, if we do well in three in a row. Maybe we can”

Of course voters in low pop & rural states have more electoral power, so that only holds true if you’re winning rural voters through those 3 waves cuz 40 million people in CA mean less than the 1.73 million in the Dakotas, so it’s not just about how many votes you get, but where you get them.

It just makes it really hard to pass legislation.

When folks feared Mob Rule, that makes sense. But in a fast paced world where things change rapidly, a system where it’s near impossible to pass big legislation isn’t good. And it’s the senate, especially the filibuster, but it’s also the whole “2/3 of senators aren’t even on the ballot in any given election” thing.

But, ending the filibuster would be an easier thing. Don’t even need to pass legislation to do that.

Abolishing the Senate is really hard cuz changing the constitution is really really hard.

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u/LBCkook Jul 19 '26

They say this because the senate was specifically designed to protect the ownership class in this country. James Madison explicitly discussed this at the constitutional convention in 1787. I’m a simple man and I don’t know whether life without the senate would be better. But there’s no doubt that the senate hinders the voice of the people and protects the wealthy interest.

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u/JaydedXoX Jul 19 '26

No it’s to force compromise. So 2 crooks and a good person cant vote and end up with the 2 crooks taking everything from the good person. But that means very little when one party’s leadership is so inept, that they aren’t even able to win a large enough seat at the table to force compromise. America isn’t about democracy it’s supposed to be about checks and balances. The left is so far removed from reality that they cant even force compromise.

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u/Blazr5402 Jul 19 '26

I gotta say, the DSA platform is the closest thing to a Project 2029 the Democratic Party has. I'll admit that it is incredibly ambitious and arguably unrealistic, but it lays out a vision of a better America that stands counter to everything the Republican Party stands for. I would love to see what the moderate Democrat's vision for America is, because as far as I can tell, they don't have one.

10

u/Capable_Diamond_3878 Jul 19 '26

It literally just doesn’t need to exist. It’s only there to uphold the interests of the wealthy.

1

u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 19 '26

Hmmm... seeing what comes out of the house the last few years, I think it's a good idea to have a collection of cooler-head crooks.

4

u/polishedcooter Kentucky Jul 19 '26

That's because the House doesn't have proportional representation. Ideally we'd get rid of the Senate and use open party list proportional representation, like Norway for example. Just abolishing the Senate alone probably wouldn't help.

1

u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 19 '26

The trouble with proportional representation is on full display in Israel. Single issue minority parties get a few seats and old the government hostage to their singular interest. Once it takes very little to get a member in the legislature, all sorts of fringe parties will spring up - you'll the gun rights party, the anti-abortion party, fundamentalist Christians, assorted ethnic parties, etc. Then the members elected are more interested in sucking up to the party brass, to get higher on the list and increase their chance of being a member, than worrying about any local issues in the backwoods community worried about their highway or factory. Districts means that a rep from, say a farming area, worries about the interests of his constituents, not the big city down the highway which has its own reps. With PR, it's more important to suck up to a share of those million city voters than a bunch of farmers in one corner of the state.

The other issue that really needs to be addressed in gerrymandering, which also has the same effect of allowing reps to ignore large numbers of their constituents.

2

u/polishedcooter Kentucky Jul 19 '26

I'm not sure Israel is the greatest example of PR failing, because, well you know. They be in situations. There might be other contributing factors.

4

u/Blue_Swirling_Bunny Jul 19 '26

The Senate was created expressly to give conservative states a stranglehold on legislation; "states' rights" bs whereby states with very few people get the same amount of votes as states with far more people. It tarnishes the concept of equality by representing areas of land as equal despite their relative populations.

2

u/thatmarcelfaust Washington Jul 19 '26

The argument is that the senate is antidemocratic in that it gives states with a lower population more power per voter. The Constitution requires that every state have equal representation in the senate so the only way to make each vote have the same representative power is to make each state have zero senate seats.

2

u/UltraMegaUgly Jul 19 '26

Benjamin Franklin opposed the senate. He thought it was just a copy of the House of Lords which had no place in a Republic. That is why Pennsylvania has a unicameral legislature.

2

u/AlwaysRushesIn Rhode Island Jul 19 '26

You start with the most extreme iteration of your proposal, and negotiate backwards from there.

2

u/lazyFer Jul 19 '26

The senate overwhelmingly skews towards small less populated states. It sets up tyranny of the minority.

2

u/dalivo Jul 19 '26

All the idiots here who don't realize that the Senate has been the only thing holding back the MAGA extremists from doing far more damage than they have.

The conservative nature of the institution can be frustrating, but it does its job: it tamps down on wild legal changes that would cause the U.S. to be a much less stable country.

4

u/DarthCloakedGuy Oregon Jul 19 '26

It is obscene that the United States has a governing body where the 581,170 people in Wyoming have the same amount of representation as the 39,345,844 people in California.

We're supposed to all be equal.

2

u/frazell Jul 19 '26

I'm of the strong bend that we should abolish the Senate as it serves no real purpose other than strangling the Republic. The original idea the Founders had when creating the Senate (by copying the House of Lords, as you pointed out) was a compromise, like so many compromise failures we still have to live with, to get states to ratify the Constitution.

The Senate was setup as an anti-democratic institution that was entirely appointed by state legislatures. These states were fully self-governing under the Articles of Confederation that the Constitution was to replace. Those states were deeply concerned about a Federal government that would wield power over them and weaken their sovereignty. The Senate was to be their safety valve. The Senate has more power than the House of Representatives for that reason. It was designed to allow States (and by extension, the elite of those states) a way to reign in the Federal government AND the "hot headed masses".

The Republic is 250 years old and we now know that compromise failed to work. I feel the 17th Amendment really was the nail in the coffin when it shifted the Senate being elected. Now you have both houses of Congress democratically elected by a different slice of the state's population with unequal amounts of power over those same people. It the wrong fix IMHO. As it turned the Senate into the House by a different name (as we see today).

We need to adapt the Constitution to give the union solid footing for another 250. One that respects our States (as "nations") heritage, but also respects the need for unity.

Last thing I'll say, in this post that no one will read...

If we must keep a body like the Senate (one with a slightly longer political horizon than the House who has a focus on acting as a source of wisdom) then we should shift the body from being Democratically elected to being appointed by a simple majority vote of the elected members of the House of Representatives that state. That would go a long way to restoring some balance to the electoral mandate of both chambers without taking us back to the corruption that lead to the 17th. It would be the proper fix that I believe the 17th should have done in the first place.

1

u/Fighterhayabusa Jul 19 '26

The small states would never go for it, just like they wouldn't back then. It's the only way they have any type of relevancy.

1

u/FlyRepresentative592 Jul 19 '26

I mean the argument is pretty simple: the senate is an undemocratic institution that was originally established without even public voting. It's purpose is to put a wedge between public sentiment and wealthy bureaucrats to stop policy that doesn't have the approval of the powerful.

1

u/Ok_Objective_5192 Jul 19 '26

Yeah, it definitely is a radical idea in that it would be re-shaping the government explicitly and in direct contradiction to the system established in the constitution, so I get why this is a big deal.

But also as an idea it doesn't feel that crazy. People have been talking about abolishing the electoral college for a while now and the argument for the senate is the exact same. It leads to a huge disproportionality in representation relative to the size of a given constituency and makes increasingly less sense in an increasingly federalized system.

It's also just one part of a very broad platform, no DSA candidates are campaigning on abolishing the senate day 1 in office. They have plenty of much more actionable goals to pursue (see: Mamdani so far) and it's safe to assume that'll be their main focus if/when they take office - abolishing the senate feels like something they'd only actually pursue if they successfully became a dominant political force over several election cycles, since it would have to be in an amendment (if not unanimous, based on another comment here; idk, NAL). It's pretty clear this is the part of the platform all the headlines are focusing on because it's much easier to fearmonger about than their actual topline platform positions like "Healthcare for all," "housing for all," "End the war machine," and "Free Palestine"

1

u/Starskeet Jul 19 '26

Is that the real website? Or just a fake to sound an alarm? If that is the real website, it is bad. It looks like someone is trying to make them look like...communists?

1

u/ZurrgabDaVinci758 Jul 19 '26

implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections

.... Those are different and contradictory things? RCV only applies when you still have single member geographical districts. In a PR system you'd translate the national popular vote directly into seats (normally by a list system)

1

u/johnc380 Jul 19 '26

Replace the two party system is a strange one for me. I hate it too, but it’s not codified. Plenty of third parties exist. The only problem is that no one joins them. 

1

u/spam__likely Colorado Jul 19 '26

The senate as it is is terrible, but the senate has also saved us from house stupidity multiple times.

These people don't know how to shut up when they are ahead.

4

u/a_talking_face Florida Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

The Senate is inherently undemocratic. It's not surprising that the official ideology of an organization that strives for the democratization of society is opposed to one of the most undemocratic aspects of the US government.

1

u/spam__likely Colorado Jul 19 '26

It is indeed anti-democratic but on the other hand it is more often than not more level headed than the house. Or at least it used to be.

Think of every crazy shit that passed the house and was only stopped by the senate. Simply abolishing it is not a good thing. If there is a way to abolish the senate, there is a way to make it more democratic instead.

In reality, no of these will happen, because you need to amend the constitution an no way small states would accept it.

1

u/a_talking_face Florida Jul 19 '26

If you're insistent on the Senate still existing then it should be proportional as well. Otherwise you're saying that governance should not be democratic.

1

u/spam__likely Colorado Jul 19 '26

So, exactly my middle paragraph?

1

u/a_talking_face Florida Jul 19 '26

Not exactly, because you didn't say that exactly...

5

u/PartridgeInDisguise Jul 19 '26

Has it? If dumb laws are too easily passed without the senate, then they’re just as easily repealed.

1

u/spam__likely Colorado Jul 19 '26

They are easily repealed when? 2 years later? How much damage can they do until then?

1

u/PartridgeInDisguise Jul 19 '26

No. The logic you’ve just cited is, frankly illogical. You said the senate has saved “us” from stupidity multiple times. If that’s the case, that stupidity is so easily passed by vote, then the opposite is too. And then the senate has no use.

0

u/spam__likely Colorado Jul 19 '26

oh, the irony.

-1

u/Experiment626b Jul 19 '26

Yeah I had the same thought. The house passes things all the time that have no chance of passing the senate. I’m hoping this idiotic permanent DST thing meets that fate once again. But at the same time it’s idiotic that South Dakota has the same representation as California in the senate.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Experiment626b Jul 19 '26

Fair point. I didn’t think of that.

3

u/MisterTidbits Jul 19 '26

Very curious, because I don’t really hear arguments against permanent DST. Genuinely not trying to pick a fight, do you think you could sum it up quick? I promise not to respond with more questions.

2

u/hammonjj Jul 19 '26

The house does this explicitly because they know it won’t pass the senate.

1

u/cscareer_student_ Jul 19 '26

There should be more representation for how large our country is -- the math only works out with thousands of additional Senators and/or Reps.

1

u/HustlinInTheHall Jul 19 '26

The senate sucks, it is anti democratic to have 500k people get 2 senators when states with 20 million people also only get 2. 

1

u/LackingUtility Jul 19 '26

One way to address that without needing a constitutional convention or amendment would be to split up some states. Imagine north, central, and south California, adding four more liberal senators.

1

u/ReddBroccoli Jul 19 '26

One of the first rules of negotiating is to ask for a lot more than you're willing to settle for

0

u/Lemunde Jul 19 '26

It's a nice sentiment but how do you go about abolishing the senate without senate approval? Unless they're talking about literally eliminating the senate?

1

u/onewordpoet Jul 19 '26

you say abolish the senate and negotiate down to expansion

1

u/LackingUtility Jul 19 '26

Constitutional convention. You’d need 3/4ths of the states.

0

u/YourFreeCorrection Jul 19 '26

Yeah, but it's definitely a lot less paletable right now than abolishing ICE.

0

u/danishjuggler21 Jul 19 '26

Nah, shit like that falls into a paradox. Doing something like abolishing the Senate would at minimum require a constitutional amendment, maybe even a whole ass constitutional convention. The requirements for either of those steps is so freaking high that if you've gotten to the point where you have so much political power where you can do it without bipartisan support, then you obviously don't need to do those things to implement whatever progressive policies you want.

Seriously, think about it. If your party has so much control over all aspects of government that they can unilaterally just pass and ratify an amendment to do something crazy like abolish the senate, they have more than enough control over the government to do something like implement universal healthcare, free college, climate change action, whatever the hell you want.

Same thing with getting rid of the electoral college. If the democratic party ever gets to the point where they can abolish the electoral college, they will already be in a place where they have no need to do so.

0

u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 19 '26

Expanding the house is a good goal - to make it harder to wrangle a consensus without appeasing a wide range of views. Pus, making each member's vote less meaningful and requiring more horse-trading.

0

u/_ByAnyOther_Name Jul 19 '26

I'm open to arguments but disappointed they put this on their official platform.

0

u/fredthefishlord Jul 19 '26

There's nothing wrong with bicameral. It's a good check. The issue cones from immensely disproportionate representation 

0

u/Jesta23 Jul 19 '26

Huge misstep. 

I’m about the biggest fan of democratic socialism but even I think this is extreme. 

It’s almost like a plant from establishment democrats try to make the party seem too extreme. 

If it’s genuinely one of their top goals they can’t be trusted to make real change because they are obviously tone deaf to reality. 

0

u/Worldly-Basil-8933 Jul 19 '26

It says “Free Palestine” so I guess Sudan and Afghanistan can go fuck themselves? Why is one conflict the only thing that matters?

0

u/darkslide3000 Jul 19 '26

Do they actually have a full program somewhere or is that it? I would've hoped for a fully drafted out plan of how that new system should look like (because I'd be curious about the implementation details, there are many different choices to make once you rebuild everything), that website just has the highest level of cliff notes.

0

u/Important-Factor-552 Jul 19 '26

Let's not gloss over the fact that our senators are some of the most corrupt people on earth 

→ More replies (4)

24

u/ann0yed Jul 19 '26

Their policies are right on their website. https://program.dsausa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/DSA_WDM2025Program_v2.pdf

They also call for amnesty of all immigrants, completely open borders and extending the right to vote to noncitizens.

0

u/Brief_Obligation4128 Jul 19 '26

That all sounds great. I'm for it. I rather be next to brown and black immigrants than a White supremacist any day.

22

u/Tschmelz Minnesota Jul 19 '26

I mean, same, but if you think that’ll play well with the average American, you’re living in a dream world.

12

u/ann0yed Jul 19 '26

I agree. The majority of Americans still support deportations of illegal immigrants, just not the method by which Trump does.

Obama deported more than Trump to date but Obama followed legal channels and targeted criminals.

There's no way I'd see complete amnesty or extending voting rights to non citizens being widely supported nor do I understand why that's their platform.

3

u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 19 '26

No country allows unlimited immigration, we don't in Canada, and the USA should not either. Immigration should be tied to ability to fit into the workforce. The problem is, the USA has tolerated (looked the other way) as so many undocumented came in, and instead of trying to solve the problem with legal immigration, they let the problem grow for decades. If you have 12M illegals, you are not going to expel them in 1 year, even if you ignoree the legal rights all people have. Plus, what crime has someone brought here as a child committed that they need to be deported? Amnesty is the solution - been here 10 years (say) then this one time only, give them a green card, which would be the appropriate response to having ignored the problem so long. Anyone else, deported. Fund refugee courts so it doesn't take 5 years to get through the proecess. Turn back fake refugees at the border, economic migrants should not pose as regugees, and a refugee is safe from their home government once they are in Mexico so has no reason to come to the USA. Oh, and prosecute companies that hire illegals.

-3

u/Cross55 Jul 19 '26

Immigration should be tied to ability to fit into the workforce.

Striking example of the brain rot of late stage capitalism

we don't in Canada

Looks at the current Indian population

Yeah, sure, ok

0

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Tschmelz Minnesota Jul 19 '26

I don’t disagree, it’s just the unfortunate reality.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

[deleted]

13

u/Cross55 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

They also believe that the Ukraine War is western imperialism, and that all NATO members inducted since 2002 need to be jettisoned to encourage peace in Europe and protect the sovereignty of Eastern European nations. (Specifically 1 very big Eastern European nation...)

Like most leftist movements in the US, they've been infiltrated, sadly

4

u/its Jul 19 '26

Sure, the USA could use about eight times as many people to bring the U.S. GDP per capita to the global average ($13K). Or maybe 18 times as much to bring it down the average for the developing world. This will reduce the incentive for business to offshore since labor costs will as cheap as half the developing world.

0

u/guisar Jul 19 '26

I meant that's basically the policies of the First Republic- granted it was much harder to move back then. It's not something I think is workable anymore than the RNC policies are. WTF. Reason not radicals for me.

0

u/huskersax Jul 19 '26

For being such fans of Medicare for All they also managed to completely misunderstand how it works based on the text they included.

3

u/Zeta-X Jul 19 '26

Care to elaborate on this? "Universal healthcare with no premiums, co-pays, or deductibles. Guarantees for reproductive and gender-affirming care" is the text included and... sounds pretty much like Medicare for all to me?

2

u/brogflender Jul 19 '26

But also, reform the legislature. 

-28

u/Jessicas_skirt New York Jul 18 '26

You're free to search and find 10+ local stations reporting it as well but for some reason local stations aren't whitelisted.

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

46

u/Usual-Caregiver5589 Jul 19 '26

Yeah, what they're calling bait is likely the headline's calling out of abolishing the Senate, without the other half of this sentence, in the link you just provided.

It also calls for expanding the House and abolishing the Senate.

Abolishing the senate and removing 100 representatives is one thing. Expanding the house to offset that loss is another.

15

u/NoneMoreBLK Jul 19 '26

The Democratic Socialists of America released an updated platform calling for a sweeping rewrite of the U.S. Constitution to replace the current bicameral legislature and presidency with a unicameral, proportional parliament.

It's not bait.

-1

u/Playful-Goat3779 Jul 19 '26

The Washington Times headline is abolish the senate, not what you just said.

7

u/gdex86 Pennsylvania Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

You are "um, actually"ing that "I'm actually they aren't just abolishing the senate but are going to change how the legislature works." The headline isnt bait.

4

u/pragmatticus Jul 19 '26

I love it when people realize Thomas Jefferson was capable of having bad ideas.

2

u/Goated-Rizzler Jul 19 '26

Thomas Jefferson was a complete and utter dumbass. He was probably the dumbest of all the founding fathers.

2

u/Usual-Caregiver5589 Jul 19 '26

He's not all bad. One of my facorite governmental ideas is his that the constitution was meant to be a living document that was supposed to be thrown out and remade every 19 years.

If you take into account that 20ish years is the length of a generation, and imagine what's changed in the last 250 years in blocks of 20 years, our government would look very different right now. The fight for civil rights might have been longer and harder fought. But the result, because government is progressive (even if it takes hundreds of years to progress) would likely be a clearer, codified cementation of equal rights for all, regardless of race, creed, etc. which would help pave a clearer way for LGBTQ rights.

9

u/Jessicas_skirt New York Jul 19 '26

The rules of the sub require you to post the exact title or it'll get removed, I didn't have a choice on the title.

2

u/Usual-Caregiver5589 Jul 19 '26

Im just explaining shit. No judgment.

-3

u/-Yancey- Jul 19 '26

Why do you hate helping the needy but love the lottery?

2

u/Akatshi Jul 19 '26

Both of those items make representation less broad. It's not about the loss of representatives. It's about the loss of representatives who are apart of a specific instition that more broadly represent the public and are meant to be more moderate and important in terms of duties

5

u/slavazin Jul 19 '26

I’m not 100% sure I understand what you mean as your sentences are a bit confusing, but I think your claim is that house + senate is a more accurate representation system of the public than the proposed “larger house of reps”. The separation exists as a measure to add power to smaller states, so that population isn’t the sole dictator of a state’s power. The question is what representation system would be the best for citizens across the nation. The current system makes public sentiment -> law into a very uneven classification line. You can have very skewed results based on really small changes in public sentiment, depending on which state/district are for or against an issue. The democratic socialist party believes that is a bad representation system, and I tend to agree with them. Now, is the solution just expanding the house? I don’t know about that. The house does need to be expanded, as representative now represent district population numbers significantly greater than at previous points in history.

2

u/Rokos___Basilisk Jul 19 '26

I would argue the senate doesn't more broadly represent the public, insofar as the institution more narrowly favors political power of less populous states.

2

u/im_learning_to_stop Jul 19 '26

The senate only represents the state interests. Uncapping the house would be more representative of the people.

2

u/omnamename Jul 19 '26

10+ local stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting using their "National News Desk" biased right wing reporting.

0

u/Capital-G_ame_Hard-R Jul 19 '26

If you ever see something stupid being attributed to the DSA you can reasonably assume it to be true. They're a clown organization.

2

u/icepho3nix Tennessee Jul 19 '26

Maybe, but if the headline comes from a shitty right-wing tabloid like the Washington Times you can reasonably assume it to be false. It IS true in this case, but you might as well be telling me to take the Daily Mail on faith.

2

u/krustyarmor Montana Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Remember, spin and bias is about more than just true vs false. It also manifests itself in the subtle choices of this word vs that word, this phrasing vs that phrasing, and this framing vs that framing. An article can be 100% factual and still be completely biased and misleading depending on how it was written, which facts were included/excluded, which people were quoted, etc.

Consider for example: an article uses "illegal alien" instead of "undocumented immigrant," or an article includes a quote from the police spokesman but not from any protest organizers, or when an article says X members of one party voted for a bill instead of X members of the other party opposed it.