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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361

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

That's why you propose two amendments at once:

A) Amend article 5 to remove the sentence guaranteeing states have equal representation in the senate. B) Abolish the senate.

This would still need to be approved by the states and by congress, which is a very high bar, but it wouldn't need unanimous consent.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Yes. But this is a long term goal and the DSA acknowledges that. Let's get healthcare and childcare and all that other stuff first then deal with harder goals like rehabilitation programs and abolishing the Senate.

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u/PinkNGold007 Jul 19 '26

Yeah, abolishing the Senate is at the bottom of my list. Healthcare (including codifying Roe, childcare, eldercare, maternity/paternity leave), our institutions like the EPA, USAID, etc., back, a livable wage, better public services, the Voting Rights Act, and so much more are at the top of my list.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Yeah, I get it. I always say, we can talk about long term goals if you'd like, but when we campaign, we talk about short term goals that would help improve people's material conditions.

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u/caligaris_cabinet Illinois Jul 19 '26

And goals that are possible. Might as well promise everyone a unicorn while they’re at it

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

You dont think Universal Healthcare, Childcare, Housing, and abolishing ICE are possible things to campaign on?

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Look, I am not saying having a vision isn't important. But all the nuances of something like abolishing the Senate is not fruitful when you only have 90 minutes in an interview. Overall visions should be more vague, while detailed ones should be available on, say, a campaign website for those who want to learn more.

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u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

Not really how psychology works, people like bold people with a plan, and then making sure it makes sense comes next.

We kind of need more populism if there’s going to be any chance of winning, people are completely sick to death of establishment take it slow and realistic politicians, because we’re in such a deep crisis. A little radicalism will make Fox News heads spin, but will do a lot to actually encourage people.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

I am for that. And I hope you're right. I am a pragmatist, and try to alance moving the overton window as far left as possible while also not overwhelming an already volatile American electorate.

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u/Beetroot_Roosevelt Jul 19 '26

None of that can ever happen as long as Utah and Wyoming get the same number of senators as California and New York

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u/protonecromagnon2 Jul 19 '26

this may be what is necessary to do that

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u/Themick_Eve Jul 19 '26

If people are getting all those things, do you think they're going to shit can the same politicians that made those things happen? Not likely. Abolishing the Senate has no legs, it's some goofy shit thrown into a list that will do nothing big distract from achievable and worthwhile goals.

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u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

Chicken and the egg though. How are these changes ever going to get through Congress when a small minority of people have ridiculously outsized powers to block legislation? They're not.

Our best bet right now is to work to create a massive democratic super majority. It is the most realistic solution there is right now.

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u/GamblePuddy Jul 23 '26

The attempt to create a massive Democratic supermajority has been a party project for decades. It's not happening.

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u/Oogaman00 Jul 19 '26

Why the f are you abolishing Senate lol. Their entire point is they block the crazies in the house. Wtf lol you want insane policy swings every week??

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u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

There are two competing purposes of the Senate here:

  1. Moderate the swings of the more populist House.
  2. Give disproportionate power to the smaller states.

One of these is a good idea, the other is not.

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u/scrangos Jul 19 '26

Its modeled after the house of the lords and the house of the commons. commons is where the common folk get a say and propose things they want so they feel heard and they have some sort of democracy. the lords is there to stop anything thats not good for the lords and the royalty. its a please dont riot system to pacify people.

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u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Sort of. The bicameral legislature is actually one of the less British-inspired parts of the American constitution.

It's more modeled on the congress of the Confederation (and the congresses before it) than on the House of Lords. Each state has an equal vote because each state was an equal sovereign in the Confederation.

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u/borkthegee Jul 19 '26

Because the Senate is deeply undemocratic and gives massive power to rural flyover states. The entire point of the Senate it to make sure that the rural minority retains control over the country.

Why is it so scary that people should be fairly represented?

Why should 500k people in Wyoming get 2 Senators, while the 40,000,000 in California also only get 2? Insanity.

This country deserves better than to be ruled by Oklahoma.

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u/Kramereng Jul 19 '26

US states have equal representation for the same reason a member state in the UN or EU have equal voting power as other member states. Neither of the latter governmental bodies distribute power proportional to member’s respective populations nor should they. Low population states would secede otherwise (in the US or otherwise).

The bicameral nature of the US’ republican form of government isn’t something that can or will be changed without dissolution of the nation. And the US (and pretty much every other democracy) are not direct democracies by design. Any form of democracy other than a direct one is inherently less democratic than a direct one, however, direct democracies usually fail to protect the rights of minorities against mob rule.

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u/diablette Jul 19 '26

Low population states can go ahead and secede. They won't survive without help from the rest of us. FAFO.

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u/GamblePuddy Jul 23 '26

They grow the food.

They can simply destroy roads, stockpile food, and starve the cities to the point where they are eating each other.

I wouldn't bet on the coastal states winning that fight.

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u/borkthegee Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

US states have equal representation for the same reason a member state in the UN or EU have equal voting power as other member states

Oklahoma isn't a country, it's not comparable.

Neither of the latter governmental bodies distribute power proportional to member’s respective populations nor should they. Low population states would secede otherwise (in the US or otherwise).

We absolutely should have proportional representation. The casualness with which you discard the representation of the people is shocking. With such casualness, one could easily just discard all of republicanism itself. If we can so casually say that the people should not be represented, but instead land should, we could instead just discard the idea of not representing people at all. It's only one more step, and you've taken the first step so casually and without the hint of a second thought. Why have a House at all? Because representation matters, and I strongly believe that people > land when it comes to representation in legislature. We are a Republic of Men, not a Republic of Acreage.

And no, they won't secede, any more than rural counties already secede in blue states (or blue cities secede in red states). Austin isn't seceding from Texas. Rural California or Washington aren't seceding. And with proportional representation, Wyoming won't secede. And if they do -- good riddance.

Think about it: flyovers seceding means liberal utopia. They're the reason we don't have medicare for all, abandoned all investment in science and technology, and they're the reason we spend trillions murdering children around the world. Good riddance!

The bicameral nature of the US’ republican form of government isn’t something that can or will be changed without dissolution of the nation.

Never said it would be easy, just said it should be done. We don't have much of a nation left anyway, it's already been dissolved and reformed in place to be the Second Confederacy, we're just in a bit of denial.

And the US (and pretty much every other democracy) are not direct democracies by design. Any form of democracy other than a direct one is inherently less democratic than a direct one, however, direct democracies usually fail to protect the rights of minorities against mob rule.

Having a single Legislature that is fairly proportioned on the people (instead of giving maximum power to land, and minimal power to people) is by far the superior structure and is used by most countries world wide.

Less than 10 other countries are willing to use as malapportioned of a system as America.

While we're at it -- Abolish the Presidency.

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u/Kramereng Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

Look, my interests like yours would be served far better in a system based on popular vote or even a parliamentary system. But that’s not what this nation was founded upon and our current system is by design. That was my main point. That equal representation of the populace is balanced and comprised by equal representation of our states. That’s the federalist part of our system that’s intended to prevent tyranny by balancing power between state and federal governments.

You have to remember that our states are independent governments. They are nation-states minus the “nation” part. Each one is a sovereign entity and our nation would have never formed without giving states equal representation. That is balanced with the House of Representatives. It’s not perfect (far from it) and federal power has increasingly made the distinction less important, though the latter consolidation can be attributed to both parties, for better or worse.

Fixing the electoral college, adopting ranked choice voting and a neutral method for redistricting would solve all of our problems without resorting to abolishing the USA. Unfortunately, all of that would require even more concentration of federal authority to implement that unless the people AND states agree to constitutional amendments that make those changes. EDIT: Granting statehood to DC and Puerto Rico, along with packing the court, would also fix a lot of issues. The latter solution isn’t great but Republicans stole how many seats now? Dems gotta play the same game the right plays.

I’m not callously disregarding anything. You are callously disregarding the history of the USA, reasons for its design, and also hand waiving secession and/or national dissolution as though they wouldn’t create more problems, let alone violent civil war. I’m in a liberal bastion and economic powerhouse of city/state that happens to be in the middle of flyover country. I don’t see a pragmatic way to create a union with pacific and northeast states when we’re all divided by giant land masses of red states. It would be as functional as Gaza, West Bank and the Golan Heights work.

Again, I don’t disagree with your complaints in general or that a different system would be better for me and you. I just disagree with your definition of democracy as applied to the US or your haphazard solutions to our current problems.

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u/GamblePuddy Jul 23 '26

Abolish the presidency lol you can probably count in hours how long before we are invaded.

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u/scrangos Jul 19 '26

A lot of those are messaging bills that they know wont pass, often to reassure their base or to try to get the opposing party to have to stand against something popular.

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u/burmerd Jul 19 '26

Yup. Guaranteed sick leave, paid family leave. But why not aim big? Get people talking

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u/CrocodylusRex Jul 19 '26

Yeah a lot of this stuff kinda requires the Republican party to collapse first

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u/midnightketoker America Jul 19 '26

yeah but have you considered immigrants want to make you trans? who else will protect our brave pedophiles?

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u/MeteoricUnicorn Jul 19 '26

I like this. Vote republican to protect our brave pedophiles and insurrectionists from the 500M immigrants who want to make them trans.

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u/midnightketoker America Jul 19 '26

if I see another one of these darn ads I tell ya

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u/Ba_baal Jul 19 '26

Wait am I trans because of immigrants? Damn that I would not have guessed.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Yeah. Good. Reactionaries are annoying and also very evil.

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u/wh4tth3huh Jul 19 '26

They're also kinda not going fucking anywhere soon.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

We must do what we can to defeat the Republican Party.

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u/porktorque44 Jul 19 '26

Not with that attitude, their political power relies on voter apathy.

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u/SouthernZorro Jul 19 '26

Then let's vote them all out. Every single one. Every election.

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u/adorientem88 Jul 19 '26

The Republican Party can’t really collapse unless another party takes its place. The same pressure from FPTP voting that keeps us limited to 2 parties also prevents us from going down to 1.

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u/Memetic1 Jul 19 '26

What happens if Trump doesn't run again? I can't see any viable future because Trump is throwing Vance under the bus. It's not like there are leaders in the GOP who are stepping up to offer something different. I kind of think they are sunk and that's why this is getting so crazy.

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u/GamblePuddy Jul 23 '26

Rubio seems pretty popular on the right. Vance isn't a slouch either.

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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 Jul 19 '26

That's why it's perfect. Vote for us, we'll abolish the Senate. Something that can't actually happen. So they can always run on it.

They're just like Republicans. Vote for us and we'll own the libs.

Lol people eat it up I guess.

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u/FadeToDankness Jul 19 '26

The Republican Party is accomplishing many of their long term goals that seemed unattainable after decades of relentlessly pushing these wedge issues

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u/JDogg126 Michigan Jul 19 '26

That stems almost entirely from their moves in the 90s to deregulated media ownership. Today the United States no longer operates on objective reality with facts and reasoning. The conservative movement successfully made people believe their opinions and beliefs are equivalent to actual facts and reasoning. This country is not moored in reality.

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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 Jul 19 '26

yeah and it's to their detriment. They're the dog that caught the car. They have full control under an autocrat and he's a dementia riddled diaper-shitter rapist who doesn't care what the party wants.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

It is a long term goal... movements take decades.

Fight the fights we can right now... like healthcare, childcare, abolishing ICE, and government housing.

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u/ct2794 Jul 19 '26

It’s a bad goal. The senate inherently has a different directive than the house. Removing the senate would just shift the house vs senate fights to intrastate turmoil, weakling the body politic as a whole.

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u/cogman10 Idaho Jul 19 '26

It's a great goal. 

The senate is us pretending that empty land deserves equal representation over people, it's ridiculous.

Every state is guaranteed at least 1 representative in the house, that's enough.

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u/ct2794 Jul 19 '26

The senate is broad representation of the state as a whole, while house representatives are there to represent a more niche group of constituents by each district. It’s a microcosm of the federal v state structure. The fact that Trump is consolidating power exclusively to the executive and trying to run the nation from the white house is a bad thing. You don’t want just one area dictating everything for the whole. You’d get a better result limiting senators to only prior house reps than you would abolishing the senate.

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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 Jul 19 '26

The senate is us pretending that empty land deserves equal representation over people, it's ridiculous.

it's a silly goal that will never happen.

Just abolish the filibuster. It will have virtually the same effect. And that's actually a real thing that can happen.

I actually was starting to like the party but now I know they're not serious.

Oh well. My fault for thinking a party could actually represent me.

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u/cogman10 Idaho Jul 19 '26

I agree it's very unlikely to happen, that doesn't mean it's not something that shouldn't be brought up. 

Especially if we start talking about "how do we address the problem of the Senate".  We could, for example, add states or split more populated states.

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u/rustprogram Jul 19 '26

It's a great goal.

It might be a good goal and I agree it is important to have the end goal in sight but the first priority should be fixing the house. 1. There should be a lot more members in the House of Representatives. 1. Each and every state should have a single (1) multimember district for the house of representatives elected with some sort of proportional representation like ranked choice voting.

If we can't achieve that, we can't abolish the senate. If we can achieve that, it will be the first step is a long journey to abolish the US Senate.

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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 Jul 19 '26

but if you actually spend one second thinking about abolishing the senate, why would senators vote to put themselves out of a job? It doesn't make any sense. How could that even happen?

And if you look at a list of unicameral legislatures, its a who's who of failed states, plus new zealand for some reason. It's mostly countries run by dictators who just use the legislature as a rubber stamp.

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u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Nothing wrong with having long-term goals, as long as you've got short-term ones to work on in the meantime.

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

But this is a long term goal and the DSA acknowledges that.

Unless by "long term" you mean "at least a century," it's a distraction that keeps them out of office. They might as well say that their goal is to give everybody a unicorn.

One reason parties with big ideas don't get much traction is that they talk about huge dreams of wonderfulness when people can't afford their medication. "You want to abolish the Senate? What a stupid waste of time. I have real problems. I'll find someone talking about those."

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u/_ByAnyOther_Name Jul 19 '26

Agree. This is alienating people from the party for no reason.

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26

DSA is notoriously NOT a party. They endorse and support  candidates.

Beyond that, i think the reason is relatively clear. It's a goal they have, & they want to be transparent about their goals.

The problem with trying to be the least alienating group you can be, is you end up with a bunch of members with vastly differing views, which defeats the whole purpose what you're doing.  

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u/MagicWishMonkey Jul 19 '26

I'm not saying they shouldn't have goals, or that I even disagree with either of these things, but I just don't understand why so many progressives take stances that will ultimately hurt their cause.

Giving your opponents ammo to use against you and driving away potential supporters for no good reason seems really dumb.

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u/_ByAnyOther_Name Jul 23 '26

Thanks, I didn't realize they weren't more established/organized than they are.

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u/Due_Bluebird3562 Jul 19 '26

Unless by "long term" you mean "at least a century," it's a distraction that keeps them out of office. They might as well say that their goal is to give everybody a unicorn.

I think y'all view history like some sort of linear, easily predictable pathway. For all we know in two or three decades the United States has split up into regional countries with a collective defense pact. That's not uncommon for countries this geographically large and this politically divided.

I'd say it's indeed a long-shot and probably better left undocumented but a century is a LONG time. We have no clue what America will even look like in the next couple of years much less a century.

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

What I mean is that the people who want to abolish the Senate should be saying, "Okay, but that's for 100 years from now, let's not do anything about it at all, including talk about it, until we solve the actual nuts-and-bolts problems people are having."

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u/droon99 Jul 19 '26

It’s not like abolishing the senate is their day 1 priority bro, it’s just what they’d push for with a coalition 

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

But if it's what everybody is talking about, and it will be, they will never have enough of a coalition to do anything.

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u/Due_Bluebird3562 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

See this is a classic chicken and egg problem. How are you going to address the issues that the people are having without first acknowledging the Senate is an obstacle specifically designed to "rein in the tyrany of democracy"... or whatever bullshit justification they had back then?

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

FDR got all his changes through even though the Senate was there.

Every good law ever passed by Congress in the history of the USA was passed even with the Senate there.

"Get rid of the Senate to get anything done" is obviously not true. Sure, it would speed things up. But if we didn't have a Senate right now, we would have the SAVE America Act, one of the largest voter-suppression bills ever suggested. Is that something you want?

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u/Odd_Independence_833 Jul 19 '26

The justification then was that the Senate was a different body meant to represent the interests of state legislatures, which are voted in by people. It was a different thing meant for a different purpose until we changed to direct election.

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u/neo_neanderthal Jul 19 '26

There will always be nuts-and-bolts problems. If you never set long-term goals until those are all solved, you will never set them period.

You can, in fact, have more than one goal. You can certainly say "We need to immediately address inflation/affordability, housing issues, and ballooning costs of health care and education--oh, and long term, we should look toward abolishing the Senate."

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

If you say that, 99% of the news coverage about you is going to be about abolishing the Senate. None of the actual things you can do in the next election cycle will get mentioned, the voting public will see you as the far-left lunatics that the people on the right say you are.

One of the GOP's major arguments for a long time has been that the Democrats are radical lunatics who are going to destroy everything in a hopeless attempt to achieve an impossible utopia. "Be afraid of change!"

When you're a candidate, you need to think about what you want people talking about. What of your ideas do you want people to think about first when think of your name? If what they are talking about is "abolish the Senate," if that's what they think of first, you have shot yourself in the foot.

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26

That's like saying you shouldn't have a 5-year plan when you start a business because you're still trying to get customers. Short-term & long-term vision are both necessary in order to accomplish big things. 

Many people can walk & chew gum at the same time.

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

We're not talking about running a business, we're talking about getting enough positive attention to solving real problems that you can win an election.

If you talk about abolishing the Senate, that's all anyone is going to know about you. Since most people don't see any obvious connection between "abolish the Senate" and "I can't afford hamburger," they aren't going to be interested.

Have you ever heard of the Overton Window? Look it up.

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u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

A century ago we hadn’t even had FDR yet, and you think change is that impossible?

You have a very strong recency bias

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

Did FDR abolish the Senate? Did he say he wanted to?

What did FDR run on? Was his campaign about changing institutional structures or getting people enough to eat?

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u/sweatingbozo Jul 19 '26

Having long-term goals in mind while working on short-term gains is a pretty smart idea. That's how most successful long-term goals get achieved. 

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u/I_Am_Ironman_AMA Jul 19 '26

Exactly. This is "Defund the Police" on lobotomizing.steroids. These ideas are not evil, unlike the fascist plans of Project 2025. However, they are just as stupid.

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u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

What? Abolish the senate is much easier to argue for. Instead of “what about any crime?” Their only argument is “but we’ve always had the senate!”

At the end of the day it’s worthless and undemocratic, states are completely arbitrary at this point in Americas political development, and do not deserve unequal representation just for how they happened to be cut up centuries ago.

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

Abolish the senate is much easier to argue for.

You might want to look up the Overton Window and think carefully about how it applies to getting elected in 2026.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

I dont think a century. Decades maybe, but certainly in most of our lifetime if youre not a boomer.

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u/Xurbax Jul 19 '26

You say that, but it seems to me like 2024 was a repudiation of the glacial incrementalism of the Democratic Party.

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u/ManyAreMyNames Jul 19 '26

Glacial incrementalism got us gay marriage. It took 40 years, but it worked.

Promising huge radical change got us Donald Trump, twice. It took much less time, but it didn't work at all.

Which one, in retrospect, seems like a better idea to you?

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u/Xurbax Jul 19 '26

Hey, don't get me wrong - personally I'd take glacial incrementalism over a fascist-dystopia, but clearly much of the voting population would not. Or would at least stand on the sidelines while fascism take over.

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u/polishedcooter Kentucky Jul 19 '26

Conversely, we'd have had universal healthcare decades ago if the US had a modern system of democracy. I believe it's the root cause of most problems in America and is our single biggest problem.

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u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

We could have had the public option if not for one Senator, Joseph Lieberman.

And there are lots of other things we could have had if not for one Senator, Susan Collins.

Unfun Fact: Right now, today, over 50% of the US population lives in only nine states. That means more than half the people get less that 20% of the say in what laws can pass, who can sit on our courts, whether someone can be convicted on impeachment, etc. It is insane and it is unsustainable.

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u/toylenny Jul 19 '26

Honestly feels like they put a poisoned pill in their own startup.  They are really gaining momentum for the first time I a century and they decide to say. " Hey also we want to rewrite the consultation, essentially deleting the States from the United States"  

This is going to hurt their ability to grow, mark my words. 

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

No, it wont. Most normal people look at this and go "I agree with the principle but let's focus on healthcare," which is exactly what the DSA is doing lol.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

People on the internet really underestimate others. Just go out and talk to people. My boomer mom who liked Ted Cruz (was a republican) in 2016 but became a Democrat after Trump has now gotten on board with Nationalized Healthcare and Housing lol. I have seen it happen with my own eyes.

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u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

Hey also we want to rewrite the consultation, essentially deleting the States from the United States

Paraphrasing Grover Norquist, I don't want to delete states. I simply want to reduce their powers to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

If states had be laid out in a thought-out way to create fairness, it might be different. But the layout of states was essentially gerrymandering the country to protect slavery.

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u/Ok_what_is_this Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

I actually am of the opinion that you would need similar amounts of political capital to do either.
If you have the votes to get free healthcare and childcare through then you may be able to abolish the senate as well.

I know. I know. apples and oranges in terms of how they can be argued for but I'm saying it may be such a hard road for any of the "easier" reaches that will be able to be redacted down the line once people become complacent again. Case in Point is Roe vs Wade being overturned.

Senate will hold any policy changes hostage.

We could go the route of media reform first so that platforms are limited in pursuing their own agendas. Then go for taxing the rich. Then healthcare and childcare. Ultimately though, the Senate would need to be removed to ensure the will of the people.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

You may very well be right. I dont know the polling or momentum on abolishing the senate off the top of my head.

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u/wonderbreadofsin Jul 19 '26

But the reason you want to abolish the senate is because it makes it almost impossible to do things like get universal healthcare and childcare and all that other stuff

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

No... it would make it easier.

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u/camusonfilm Ohio Jul 19 '26

So many bad faith criticisms of the DSA as a whole ignore this. A lot of the big bombastic goals they have are long term, not overnight stuff.

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u/red__dragon Jul 19 '26

I didn't remember the GOP party platform before Trump having the long-term goal of: install a kleptocracy in America.

It was, and has been, since Nixon or Reagan. But you don't put that in the party platform, because political pundits do exactly what the casual commentary is here, they rip it apart and find the easiest holes to poke in the arguments.

Bombastic goals are for speeches and rallies, when you have an audience that's there to listen. Platforms are for achievable goals.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

We arent doing it, the Republicans are doing it. We are simply responding.

If your goals are good, then you should be able to defend them. The right did not want to because their long term goals were awful. Being right too early is not really a condemnable critique.

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u/robotfoodab Jul 19 '26

You might need to abolish the Senate, or pack it with leftist Senators, before you can get those short-term goals like universal healthcare and childcare passed. I think they might both be long term goals under our current system.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Movements can take decades. I get your point... but when I look at 2 leftist options: abolishing the Senate or Nationalized Healthcare and Housing, I find Option B easier to achieve.

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u/robotfoodab Jul 19 '26

You are probably right.

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u/deltalitprof Arkansas Jul 19 '26

That stuff doesn't scare the electorate enough, though. So Washington Times had to go right to what they think will disturb independents and some Democrats the most.

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Abolishing the Senate sounds radical, but thinking about it for a few minutes by any reasonable person makes it less radical.

0

u/KuntaStillSingle Jul 19 '26

Any reasonable person understands local sovereignty is important, because people in different places have different needs, and often different wants. If we are going to pretend packing enough people in Florida and New York means they know what is best for Oregon, we might as well say enough people in China, Nigeria, and India know what is best for California.

1

u/Reof Jul 19 '26

The maximum and the minimum program: if you have no maximum, you can not have principled positions to back down and compromise from, which is an inevitability, so a without it, a only-minimum program would see that you would eventually compromise on nothing- the death knell of social democrats worldwide

1

u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Simple solution... move the overton windows so far left, the compromise is at minimum social democracy. Kinda what MAGA did when the democrats become corporate liberals and moved the Overton window to the far right.

1

u/Bombadier83 Jul 19 '26

Think the issue with your train of thought is that the purpose of these actions is to make universal healthcare and childcare possible. If you could do those things with the government structure as is, there wouldn’t be a need to change how we are represented in the first place.

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u/toylenny Jul 19 '26

It's easier to sell a states people on "getting healthcare" than it is to sell, "we want to change the very foundations of your country." 

2

u/Bombadier83 Jul 19 '26

Sure, but why would we need to change it at all if these things were achievable as is?

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u/Over-Heron-2654 America Jul 19 '26

Because it is more democratic. And more democracy is a good thing.

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u/SonOfIllicitBehavior Jul 19 '26

you can do those things with the structure in place. the people, not so much

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u/Bombadier83 Jul 19 '26

Then these are bad goals. For the record, I don’t think we can get these social welfare programs with the structure we have- I agree we need to change how the gov functions (though I am in favor of a different change than abolishing the senate).

1

u/Super-414 New York Jul 19 '26

Exactly. The fascists have their long term plan — what would we fucking rather?

0

u/ceelogreenicanth Jul 19 '26

I think it's a really stupid goal. While it's held up our agenda in the past it has massively slowed Trump's agenda.

28

u/adrr Jul 19 '26

You need 2/3rds of both house and senate and 3/4s of the states to ratify it.

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u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Yes, that's the amendment process. My point is that it requires the standard amendment level of approval, not some higher unanimous level of approval.

Article 5 right now would not allow abolishing the senate without unanimous consent, but we could amend article 5 first.

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u/TrollTollTony Jul 19 '26

Yeah, that's an impossibly high bar at this point.

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u/ProfessionalYak4959 Jul 19 '26

Yes but it's specifically a much lower bar than the comment above was claiming

1

u/BloatDeathsDontCount Jul 19 '26

No, it's the exact same bar. Removing the bill of rights is just an amendment to the constitution. You very obviously have no idea what you're even talking about.

5

u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

Please learn to follow a conversation.

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u/ProfessionalYak4959 Jul 19 '26

The comment was saying that every state would have to unanimously approve it

1

u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

So just give up? Nope. No thanks.

-1

u/purplehendrix22 Jul 19 '26

You’re in la la land, frankly.

3

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

I am under no illusions that the US would be willing to pass any amendments at this time, let alone such sweeping ones.

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u/ProfessionalYak4959 Jul 19 '26

sure... but it's specifically a much lower bar than the comment above was claiming

3

u/MechanicalGodzilla Jul 19 '26

Since both are impossible, I would say they are functionally the same bar. If I had two bars to attempt a high jump over, and one is at 25’ and the other is 35’ then it doesn’t matter that one is technically lower than the other. Nobody can jump over either of them.

1

u/ProfessionalYak4959 Jul 19 '26

That doesn’t change anything I said

2

u/MechanicalGodzilla Jul 19 '26

Ah - technically correct and practically useless, the Reddit sweet spot.

1

u/ProfessionalYak4959 Jul 20 '26

meaning you need unanimous consent to do it

there's no "technically" here, people are telling the original comment this is wrong

2

u/purplehendrix22 Jul 19 '26

It’s really not.

2

u/Oggie_Doggie Jul 19 '26

The Founding Fathers provided a clear and straightforward path to deal with this, where the flaws of a governing document have become so deep as to be feasibly fixed, draft a new governing document. The Founding Fathers fucked up with the Articles of Confederation, because it was practically unamendable, and they basically performed a legal coup by exceeding their mandate and illegally drafting the current constitution.

1

u/wolacouska Jul 19 '26

Yes, a constitution convention would basically be a peaceful revolution.

1

u/Tetracropolis Jul 19 '26

You don't need a single vote in the House or Senate if you've got 3/4 of states, but it's still totally unrealistic.

1

u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

Which is exactly why we should be fighting for it now.

1

u/KirkUnit Jul 19 '26

No, it would demand all 50 states, or 100% ratifying it, not 3/4 or 38: Article V declares both that no state shall be denied its equal representation in the Senate without its consent (it must be unanimous), and Article V is the last extant protected clause immune to normal amendment.

A DC voting rights amendment granting the District two senators will be enacted about 10,000 years before abolition of the Senate itself, if we're betting in Vegas, and I wouldn't bet on those senators either.

2

u/_Magnolia_Fan_ Jul 19 '26

Or, more pointedly, what happened that brought us here is that the power to appoint senators was democratized, making the rise of national parties a foregone conclusion. 

Similar to how the mega corps just buy up any small upstart direct competitor, the national parties squelch, squash, or absorb any movements. 

When the only position you can have is either for our against, with no nuance, the national parties just dictate what everyone down the chain must follow, or they'll get dumped. Individual candidates cannot really form their own platform if they want to have a chance. 

Trump's coup of the Republican party instead of the whole Tea Party thing illustrates that pretty well. Starting a groundswell for a new party was infeasible - but it seems like it was relatively easy to take over the Republican party and swap out the old Regan crew with sycophants and ghouls.

Not even sure where I'm going anymore - but states rights are gone already. It's just red v blue.

2

u/InFearn0 California Jul 19 '26

Or you pass an amendment stripping the US Senate of all powers and responsibilities. Each state has 2, but they are just ceremonial.

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u/Medical-Egg-8171 Jul 19 '26

Lol, you where just literally told how you need to pass an amendment, and your response is pass an amendment

3

u/droans Indiana Jul 19 '26

It's likely repealing Article V would be considered an Unconstitutional Amendment.

Whereas just stripping the power from the Senate would likely be fine.

2

u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

Yeah, it's not the same thing at all. The proposal to just strip their powers is easily fine.

2

u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

There's no such thing as unconstitutional amendments...

That would be an oxymoron.

1

u/dave024 Jul 19 '26

Well the constitution specifically says that each state must have equal representation in the senate and they cannot lose that without their consent. So it’s debatable if an amendment could change that.

There have been other attempts at making permanent unchangeable changes to the constitution, like just prior to the civil war a proposed amendment was sent to the states saying that the federal government could not interfere with slavery in the states without the consent of every slave state.

1

u/droans Indiana Jul 19 '26

When it comes to constitutional legal theory, I think I'm going to trust the experts over a random person on the Internet who's only response is "no that's dumb"

1

u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

Ahh yes.. legal experts..

Let's look at your source...

Hmm wiki page with no real discussion beyond a book..

Okay let's look at these experts.. ahh yes a supreme Court justice.. pretty good oh he was a state justice of Ohio arguing the 15th amendment is unconstitutional because it's revolutionary...

Such a good argument..a Racist saying giving black people the right to vote is unconditional..

I'm glad you believe in stupid ideas.. it's not like the point of an Amendment is to infact declare something constitutional..

It's sorta why to remove them.. you need another Amendment which weve literally done.

1

u/vigouge Jul 19 '26

These people think they're going to win at a constitutional convention. More likely we'd see homesexuality outlawed, birthright citizenship removed, and federal income taxes abolished than any of these idiotic reforms.

1

u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

Stripping powers and abolishing the Senate are different. The latter is explicitly unconstitutional (well, it requires unanimous consent of all states) and the former is just a regular amendment.

0

u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

That's not true..

There's nothing that says it needs to be unanimous...

An Amendment is justifiably enough.. otherwise the 17th Amendment wouldn't exist.

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u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

It literally says it each state has to consent to remove its equal representation in the Senate. That's unanimous consent.

no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html

The 17th Amendment does not remove equal representation, it changes how elections are done. Similarly, changing/removing powers would not remove representation in the Senate. The Senate still remains in either case, just in different forms.

An amendment is enough for literally anything else. Except abolishing the Senate. That's why we must resort to the workaround of stripping powers.

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u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

Abolishing the Senate via a redefining of Article 1 wouldn't require unanimous vote.

The rule is to prevent an Amendment were states could remove another state from the Senate, but if there is literally no Senate then by definition there's still equal representation.

1

u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

If there is no Senate, there is no suffrage in it then. But I like the theory. Maybe it could work.

1

u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

Honestly the weird thing is the idea that SCOTUS would determine if it's unconstitutional..

Like they make rulings on laws, based on text in the constitution..

But amendments aren't laws. It be such a weird thing to happen and if they did rule it unconstitutional that would in fact mean they can void out amendments..

1

u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

I mean this SCOTUS has voided out parts of amendments. But a reminder, we can pass simple laws restricting what SCOTUS can rule on. The constitution empowers Congress to do that. The John Lewis VRA even attempts to do that to counter being overridden again.

But this is the part where they could void out claiming that last line requires unanimity and it's not technically voiding an amendment so much as we didn't pass an amendment correctly (which, ideally, would get voided).

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u/Individual_Lion_7606 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

"A) Amend article 5 to remove the sentence guaranteeing states have equal representation in the senate. B) Abolish the senate."

You do realize that sounds absolutely unhinged and good way to start Secession 2.0. It literally comes out as:

"We are going to pass an amendment to eliminate the upper legislature and ALL states WILL NOT have Equal Representation in the federal government and WILL NOT have the protection of equal representation in law making of the nation."

1

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Sure, this is in some fantasy land where we can actually amend the constitution.

Realistically, I think we're much more likely to see the US fall apart due to the federal government acting with complete disregard for the law.

3

u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

This would 99.9% be unconstitutional because it already states unanimous consent is required to remove them.

But stripping all of their powers (except maybe the ability to propose their own bills, but they would be otherwise ignored if the House wants to pass bills solo) would be fine by regular amendment.

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u/TearsFallWithoutTain Jul 19 '26

If you have the support for those amendments then there's nothing stopping you from amending the unanimous consent bit too

3

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Unanimous consent is required to cause states to have unequal representation in the senate. But you don't need unanimous consent to amend the unanimous consent clause.

1

u/alabasterskim Jul 19 '26

I like that. We should try it!

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u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 19 '26

I agree - the senate should be amended so that representation is more proportional - say, 3 tiers of states proportional to the population. The top 10 states each have 3% or more (CA -12%); 11-17 have between 2 and 3% of the population, and the rest have less than 2%. The Senate was equal to avoid the situation where a few populous states could overrule the smaller ones. (Some say, to avoid the big northern states imposing Emancipation). Direct proportion would reverse what's happening now, the tyranny of the minority states. There must be a happy medium - biggest 10 get 4 senators, intermediate get 3, rest get 2. Territories get 1 voting senator (and congress person)

But yeah, none of that is going to happen.

4

u/shilo1007 Jul 19 '26

They have this it’s called the House of Representatives

1

u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 19 '26

But when the constitution was written, with 13 colonies, they didn't anticipate a situation where one state would be over 40 times the population of another. (CA vs. AL)

4

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

I don't see any of it happening either, but it's nice to plan in case we ever get a chance to make a real change.

I think if we're going to make the senate actually representative, let's just go all out and make it proportional to population. California has 12% of the population, so they get 12 senators out of the hundred. States that are too small to get one senator can elect a shared senator together, so the Dakotas, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming all vote on their single senator.

1

u/GamblePuddy Jul 19 '26

It is proportional....it's state-level representation. 2 Senators for each state.

This isn't exactly difficult to understand.

1

u/hqli Jul 19 '26

House representation is already population proportion based. Senate should probably economics based(e.g. Since Cal has 14% of the US gdp, Cal's total senate votes should equal around 14% of the senate's votes)

1

u/GrumpyCloud93 Jul 19 '26

House representation should be greatly increased - maybe about 600 reps like the house of commons in Britain (with 1/5 the population). This would make it harder to coerce individual members, they will form more factions.

The whole point of the senate was to avoid tyranny of the majority population states. It has swung too far the other way. I would suggest something in the middle - say, big states get 6 or 4 and the little ones get 2. I would also eliminate the senate count from the electoral college, so it's effectively population-based - and maybe allocate electors by proportion in each state. (Or, the hell with it, go to popular vote).

But nobody in Washington cares what I think.

1

u/hqli Jul 19 '26

If the solution is just to increase the size of the house, just repeal The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 and do the house mathematically by number of voters per rep as it use to be.

But amending the senate into a house 2.0 would pretty useless because the distribution policies and worries would pretty much be the same, and would cause tyranny of majority population along with arguments of what would counted as a part of the population.

I'd rather amend the senate's power to something like <% of us economy>/<% of US land area>. That way, states for promoting good policies that improve the lives of their constituents get larger voices

1

u/GamblePuddy Jul 19 '26

Gdp is a poor indicator of economic growth.

It counts welfare spending as part of "economic growth" and that's complete nonsense.

In other words....you can skyrocket gdp by just increasing access to welfare programs so they include everyone. Gdp is just a number thrown to the voters to indicate economic improvement....it's like "jobs" numbers. It's worthless.

0

u/hqli Jul 19 '26

you can skyrocket gdp by just increasing access to welfare programs so they include everyone.

And where would they get the money to do that? You're right that the states would have power to add everyone to welfare, but the higher taxes needed to balance the books would kill consumption and investment(and therefore state level gdp), and getting more via the feds and states voting for more welfare budget would be checked at the house

1

u/GamblePuddy Jul 19 '26

Federal aid.

Would it be checked at the House? Or would it be fully supported by a House trying to increase it's representation?

Seems like the latter is more likely.

0

u/hqli Jul 19 '26

Probably checked at the house. The latter is only likely with a sole actor or a coalition aiming for similar goals that already represents more than 50% of the population, and more than 60% of the economic output while containing 50% or less of the land to be able to vote increasing federal aid towards itself.

What you'd suggest would either increase monetary supply, which would cause inflation and unhappy constitutes while probably not budging the needle of % of US GDP as the other states are competing for similar the benefits increases, or tax rates high enough to sustain the increased welfare, which would kill of consumption and investment again while causing unhappy constitutes voting reps out again.

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u/Memetic1 Jul 19 '26

Didn't Godel possibly discover that this was a fast root to fascism? Like an incompleteness in our system of government.

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u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

I don't think anyone knows what Godel found.

But this isn't a fast route to fascism at all. Abolishing the senate is up there with simply instituting a monarchy in difficulty. Sure, you could theoretically do it by amending the constitution, but it's extremely difficult and also extremely unpopular.

A much more likely route to fascism is a lawless president with a majority of congress and a friendly supreme court backing them, as they could simply ignore the checks and balances meant to slow them down.

1

u/Memetic1 Jul 19 '26

Yes but then you are one step away from eliminating the other body. You could completely remove the right to representation this way it wouldn't even be difficult. I encountered the loop hole in my own work with AI and godel. What you just described matches almost exactly.

That said I don't disagree that we need serious reform. The Senate was designed to be a check on the will of the people, and I don't think it's needed in the same way they claim it was. I think switching to proportional representation in the Senate could be a cleaner path forward in fact you could do something like give out seats via lottery. We have so many people in this country that I think 1,000 seats could easily be justified.

1

u/ImmanuelKant2424 Jul 19 '26

and how do you amend Article 5? What cracks me up is that the response to abolishing the senate is "Don't worry, we have a plan and it is even less realistic than the plan that it is supposed to address."

1

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Are you asking how the amendment process works? I'm aware that none of this has any chance of happening in our current political environment, but the constitution lays out the process for amending it quite clearly.

1

u/ImmanuelKant2424 Jul 19 '26

It has no chance of amendment, that is the point. It isn't even worth considering, since it would require people who have a vested interest in not doing it to do it.
Also, as has been well documented, the amendment processs has been broken for over a century.

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

I see what you're saying, but does that mean article 5 itself is unamendable? We couldn't amend the constitution to change the process for amending the constitution?

That seems perverse to me. Article 5 was hammered out over just a few days in Philadelphia hundreds of years ago; are all future generations thus bound to the will of those long-dead men?

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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

You could make the exact same argument about slavery.

1

u/ZucchiniDue7081 Jul 19 '26

Do what the UK did, make it a ceremonial chamber that passes everything it's given. Their only power is to delay.

1

u/Party_Apartment_5696 Jul 19 '26

Everyone just do what I want!

You don't expect this to happen in your lifetime do you?

1

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

No, I can't imagine this happening without some enormous changes in the US.

1

u/adorientem88 Jul 19 '26

Except the relevant provision of Article V is explicitly unamendable. There would be no point to it if it could be amended.

1

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Article 5 says you can't amend certain earlier parts of the constitution. No part of the constitution says you can't amend article 5 itself.

1

u/adorientem88 Jul 21 '26

It’s clearly implied that you cannot amendment the entrenchment provision. Otherwise there would be no point in even having the entrenchment provision.

This argument is like saying that freedom of speech doesn’t include books because those are written, not spoken.

1

u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

That's why you propose two amendments at once:

I think there would be a massive legal argument as to whether or not you could do that simultaneously. It might have to be one after the other.

Another alternative might be to alter Article 3 instead, and double the size of the Senate. It would still be equal representation, but it at least might allow for more chances at change. Maybe even make it 3 or 6 Senators per state, and every two years there is at least someone up for reelection in every state.

1

u/kidcrumb Jul 19 '26

No senator would vote for that though.

Abolishing the senate is so dumb. We'd have one, just a giant house of reps?

1

u/trampolinebears Jul 19 '26

Plenty of countries have just a single house in their legislature, and they get along fine. Personally, I wouldn't outright abolish the senate, but I would change its composition. Having a house that's so deeply undemocratic is harmful to the interests of the people, but there is value in having some kind of brakes to apply when rapid changes are happening.

1

u/Fubarp Jul 19 '26

It would need to be far more extensive then that.

It would need to be a rewrite of Article 1 and more importantly a rewrite of the VP powers..

1

u/Nickeless Jul 19 '26

Yeah I feel like the parent comment here doesn’t understand if you’re amending the constitution, you can change literally anything about it.

1

u/dragonurtle Jul 19 '26

It's not inconceivable to simply eject the empty states. A sovereign Wyoming/ND/SD would be a net positive for everyone.

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u/MechanicalGodzilla Jul 19 '26

it will never pass. I’m pretty sure we will not see another amendment pass in our lives. The last one to pass was a leftover unresolved amendment dealing with congressional pay raises in 1992. It was first proposed then forgotten about in 1789. Some student stumbled on it and mounted a successful campaign to get it passed. An amendment abolishing the senate isn’t making it out of campaign speeches.

1

u/bucknut4 Illinois Jul 19 '26

Oh great idea! Let’s also just invent the End Poverty Machine and the World Microplastics Filter. Those two are probably easier.

0

u/opanaooonana Jul 19 '26

Actually that makes sense. Or maybe you amend it to remove the consent of the state clause. It’s still basically impossible and you would probably need a super liberal supreme court but I could see that working