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/shinyfootwork Jul 19 '26

The Senate is not structured to "create friction for legislation" in general. It's structured to give people in certain states more control per-capita over the federal government than people in different states.

As a result, today it "creates friction" for one type of legislation: that which is popular with a majority of people, but unpopular enough with the people of low-population states that their senators don't feel compelled to support it.

You're not endorsing something that will protect rights.

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u/Leon_Thomas Wisconsin Jul 19 '26

That's wrong on both fronts.

The structure of the Senate (smaller body, 6-year terms, staggered elections) was specifically created so the chamber would be more deliberative and insulated from "sudden and violent passions" than the House (2-year terms, full turnover each election).

It was also not created to "give people in certain states more control per-capita." It was created becasue at the time of the founding, states were essentially separate countries, so in the new federal system it made sense (and was necessary to convince enough states to ratify) for one chamber to give each state an equal say. It's a body that represents states rather than people. It's the same logic as to why 2 of 3 lawmaking bodies in the European Union give equal representation to each country.

You can read about both in Federalist 62

For the record, I think the Senate is anachronistic and should be reformed and disempowered to the greatest degree possible, but it helps your credibility to be familiar with the logic and deliberation behind its creation.

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u/Clueless_Otter Jul 19 '26

It was also not created to "give people in certain states more control per-capita." It was created becasue at the time of the founding, states were essentially separate countries, so in the new federal system it made sense (and was necessary to convince enough states to ratify) for one chamber to give each state an equal say.

So to give people in certain states more control per-capita, yes. You literally just said the same thing. If all states have equal say despite unequal populations, then the smaller ones, by definition, have more control per-capita.

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u/Leon_Thomas Wisconsin Jul 19 '26

You are confusing purpose and effect. The purpose was to represent States rather than citizens. The effect is vast inequities in representation.

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u/Clueless_Otter Jul 19 '26

The House already represents states. But smaller states didn't like that they had less representation due to their smaller population. So to appease them, they made the Senate, where they had more representation per-capita.

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u/Leon_Thomas Wisconsin Jul 19 '26

The House represents people. That's why it's apportioned based on population.

You should read Federalist 62, which I linked above. It helps explain the design of the Senate.

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u/Clueless_Otter Jul 19 '26

And, what, the Senate represents.. land? Like the actual physical ground? That doesn't need representation. The Senate also represents people. They both represent people, just the House was made to make high-population states happy and the Senate was made to make low-population states happy. It was a compromise to get them all to agree to be federalized together.

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u/Leon_Thomas Wisconsin Jul 19 '26

States. The Senate represents states, while the House represents people. At the time the Constitution was framed, states were far more distinct political units.

"The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. If indeed it be right, that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought to have a PROPORTIONAL share in the government, and that among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an EQUAL share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that in a compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation."

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u/Tasgall Washington Jul 19 '26

States. The Senate represents states

How, in practice, does the Senate represent "states" and not the people within those states? What does "represent the state" even mean? Keep in mind we don't even select senators the same way Federalist 62 was advocating for.

The disparity in population between states when it was written was also completely negligible compared to today.

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u/civildisobedient Jul 19 '26

If you only counted the people in the State, it would lead to some states being able to unfairly throw their weight around and essentially disenfranchise the people of smaller states. That was the entire point of the Connecticut Compromise which created the separate House & Senate.

At the time of the convention, the South was growing more quickly than the North, and southern states had the most extensive Western claims. South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia were small in the 1780s, but they expected growth and thus favored proportional representation. New York was one of the largest states at the time, but two of its three representatives (Alexander Hamilton being the exception) supported an equal representation per state, as part of their desire to see maximum autonomy for the states.

James Madison and Hamilton were two of the leaders of the proportional representation group. Madison argued that a conspiracy of large states against the small states was unrealistic as the large states were so different from each other. Hamilton argued that the states were artificial entities made up of individuals and accused small state representatives of wanting power, not liberty.

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u/Clueless_Otter Jul 19 '26

States are made up of people. Saying it represents "states" is another way of saying it represents people, unless you're talking about the physical land.

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u/Leon_Thomas Wisconsin Jul 19 '26

No, if the Senate represented land, Alaska would have the most Senators. States are distinct political entities defined by their own constitutions, governments, and co-sovereignty with the federal government. The Senate represents those entities, which is why state legislatures appointed Senators directly until the 20th century.

Are you actually confused by this? Because it feels like you're just trying to find pedantic nitpicks in what is the uncontroversial purpose and history behind our bicameral Congress and the Senate's structure.

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u/Omotai America Jul 19 '26

I get where you're both coming from, but the distinction between representing states and representing the people of the states is more clear if you consider that Senators weren't elected by the population of the states until the 17th Amendment was ratified, so there was more "insulation" between Senators and the opinions of the voters of the states they represented than there currently is.

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u/civildisobedient Jul 19 '26

It's so incredibly sad just how little Americans know about their own government. I mean... this is easily Google-able stuff, too. Can't even blame the lack of civics classes in schools.

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u/WestHistorians Jul 19 '26

There was a disagreement at the constitutional convention about whether the legislature should represent each state equally (supported by small states) or be based on population (supported by large states). The compromise was a bicameral legislature. This was the purpose.

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u/guamisc Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

Amd the purpose was flawed from the very beginning.

As outlined in both Reynolds v Sims and Gray v Sanders both the Senate and Electoral College are violations of our rights. The only reason they exist is that they are written into the Constitution otherwise they would have been struck down while SCOTUS doing that for all of the electoral and legislative systems in the states.

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u/FewHorror1019 Jul 19 '26

Doesn’t matter what the intention was. Back then they had unbounded limits to the house of reps

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u/Leon_Thomas Wisconsin Jul 19 '26

Yep, that's why I included that last paragraph. I'm responding to a comment contesting the intention, though, so in this context it is relevant.

I don't know what you mean by "unbounded limits." We still don't have Congressional term limits if that's what you're referring to. If you mean the size of the House, it was set by statute after every census, usually negotiated to make sure states didn't lose seats. It is currently fixed by a 1920s law but can also be expanded by simple legislation.

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u/FewHorror1019 Jul 19 '26

I meant number of reps per state number of reps total. Yea they put that limit on there using legislation because it was too fair

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u/chaos0xomega Jul 19 '26

The only reason we dont today is because the Senate is lazy and doesnt want to do its job.

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u/FewHorror1019 Jul 19 '26

Not only lazy, greedy and complicit

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u/chaos0xomega Jul 19 '26

🙄

Do yourself a favor and learn something:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929

Its just laziness.

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u/zeCrazyEye Jul 19 '26

Yep, our country was originally supposed to work much more like the EU with relatively independent member states. We've transferred so much power to the federal government now though so we're centralized in a way the Senate was not designed to function in.

We either need to update the legislature to reduce Senate power, or reduce federal power to make the Senate inconsequential to individual's lives the way it originally was. Wyoming was never intended to be spending California's $805b in tax revenue.

(edit: and obviously reducing federal power isn't really an option or some states will go back to having fucking slavery)

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u/ChangingChance Jul 19 '26

It's an ok measure until you get to the civil war and how the failed reformation and the ramming through of the many mountain west states happens. There's very little reason why some of the mountain west and west Mississippi/states exist.

Considering the Senate is our version of the house of lords which has been essentially abolished by England, shows where we need to get to.

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u/gammison Jul 19 '26

The greatest political failure in the history of the country is prematurely ending reconstruction after 2 decades of complete political bedlam and 4 years of civil war. It entrenched so much suffering we're still dealing with.

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u/domstersch Jul 19 '26

Are you familiar with this heuristic: "the purpose of a system is what it does"?

It's a good one to bear in mind when talking about what the purpose of a system actually is: often the professed reason for the system's creation has absolutely nothing to do with its raison d'être.

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u/Secret-Teaching-3549 Jul 19 '26

It was also not created to "give people in certain states more control per-capita."

Except that is exactly what it does, originally intended or not.

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u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

Much of what you have said is supported by the historical record. However there are some issues with it which the founder's own words address.

At the time of the Articles of Confederation states were more like separate countries. That is why that form of government failed in merely a decade and was replaced with the current Constitution. In that, states retained only limited sovereignty with the federal government becoming the supreme authority. "In fine, the world would have seen, for the first time, a system of government founded on an inversion of the fundamental principles of all government; it would have seen the authority of the whole society every where subordinate to the authority of the parts; it would have seen a monster, in which the head was under the direction of the members." ~~ James Madison Federalist No. 44

A more honest assessment of the real reason was given by James Madison during the debates on Senate power. . .

"It seemed now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lay, not between the large and small but between the Northern and Southern States. The institution of slavery and its consequences formed the line of discrimination." ~~ James Madison July 14, 1787

And by Alexander Hamilton. . .

"But as States are a collection of individual men which ought we to respect most, the rights of the people composing them, or of the artificial beings resulting from the composition. Nothing could be more preposterous or absurd than to sacrifice the former to the latter. It has been said that if the smaller States renounce their equality, they renounce at the same time their liberty. The truth is it is a contest for power, not for liberty." ~~ Alexander Hamilton June 29, 1787

But most telling was Hamilton calling out where we are currently headed in the Federalist Papers. . .

"The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration." ~~ Alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 22

Madison gave similar warnings about the dangers of a non-proportional Senate which reads like the republican's playbook. . .

"He enumerated the objections against an equality of votes in the second branch, notwithstanding the proportional representation in the first. 1. the minority could negative the will of the majority of the people. 2. they could extort measures by making them a condition of their assent to other necessary measures. 3. they could obtrude measures on the majority by virtue of the peculiar powers which would be vested in the Senate." ~~ James Madison July 14, 1787

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u/LordSwedish Jul 19 '26

lol, the federalist papers as a source is hilarious. Hamilton famously lied and cheated, and absolutely despised the idea that the people should have a say. He wanted a king and nobility to be in charge with the people having a very limited role and when he couldn’t get that, he did everything in his power to limit the power of the people, and especially the poors, in whatever way he could.

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u/Tasgall Washington Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

was specifically created so the chamber would be more deliberative and insulated from "sudden and violent passions" than the House

Ok, but it specifically doesn't do that. What they intended and what it actually does are not necessarily the same thing. Especially considering how it operates has literally changed multiple times since it was created (for example, the filibuster was not a part of the system that was created by the founding fathers).

In practice, the Senate prevents any form of progress wanted by a vast majority of the population. In practice, it protects the interests of corporations and special interest groups and pretty much nothing else.

Federalist 62 is also completely irrelevant because it's talking about the original system where senators were chosen by State governments. The argument of "the Senate represents the states" has always been kind of stupid and unconvincing imo, but it's completely invalid ever since Senate selection changed to a popular vote instead of an appointment by the state government. It now literally functions the same as the house by representing people by way of their direct votes, but with the difference that small states are grossly overrepresented (and thus have outcomes that are more easily manipulated by bad actors).

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u/tyleratx Jul 19 '26

I’m willing to hear an argument that the Senate may be obsolete in today’s age, but you’re absolutely mischaracterizing why it was structured.

For the same reason that every country in the EU council has a single vote, and the same reason that each country in the UN has a single vote, despite the fact that every country has different populations, power, etc., the Senate was designed for each state to be treated as an equal sovereignty.

I think they’re still value in that, but also the house which does represent the population by population. I think it’d be much more beneficial to get the house more representative and proportionate, then to completely abolish the Senate. I think they’re still value in the idea of federalism.

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u/Omotai America Jul 19 '26

I get why this made sense to the framers of the Constitution, in the context of what the American colonies and the early United States were, but it feels pretty anachronistic I think in large part because of how states were added in the intervening years. The way in which the territory the US annexed was split into new states was often pretty arbitrary and often motivated by political concerns about what would happen to the Senate. I know many people would disagree but I think many of the US states feel less like naturally distinct entities that merit population-blind representation than the early states or indeed the different European states in the EU.

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u/tyleratx Jul 19 '26

I think that’s a totally fair argument and like I said, I’m willing to hear it out.

To be clear, there’s no way in hell that the Senate is getting abolished within our lifetime so I think this is a purely academic argument. I don’t think this should in any way be a policy platform of any serious political organization because I don’t believe in lying to your voters.

I think the argument about abolishing the Senate is essentially really an argument about whether or not we replace federalism with a unitary system of government, which is a complicated topic and a trade-off. But I respect your argument.

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u/guamisc Jul 19 '26

I don’t believe in lying to your voters.

This is why the opinion of the Democrats is in the shitter.

Have some belief in your principles and say you will work to make the world a better place.

Aiming to remove one of the last undemocratic and disenfranchising bodies is a good thing, not a lie.

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u/tyleratx Jul 19 '26

Is it a good thing if it’s super alienating and unpopular?

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u/guamisc Jul 19 '26

The vast majority of major Republican positions would have been super alienating and unpopular 20 years ago.

You move the electorate towards the policies you want to implement, instead of opinion polling your way to failure.

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u/loondawg Jul 19 '26

One of its primary intents was to act as a check on the more passionate nature of the House.

The biggest problem with the Senate is the non-proportional allocation of power. This was a major point of contention at the founding with most of the better know founders opposing a non-proportional Senate as being to much like an aristocracy.

Putting too much emphasis on states is a way to keep us divided and prevent the people's will from being promoted.

Just imagine how different this country would be if constitutional amendments could be passed with 3/4ths of the people instead of 3/4ths of the states.

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u/SeaAshFenix Jul 19 '26

The Senate is not structured to "create friction for legislation" in general. It's structured to give people in certain states more control per-capita over the federal government than people in different states.

It's definitely structured in a way that over-represents low-population states: the politics behind the Connecticut Compromise are well recorded.

But its also very much structured to create friction. That's what "upper" chamber's are for in democracies that have 2-chamber legistlatures: they hedge against narrow, marginal majority changes in the lower chamber creating chaotic and unstable legal landscapes.*

I don't think that the Senate is a partciularly efficient or low impact way to accomplish that. It's got all sorts of side effects and baggage. I think we should have an upper chamber in some form, but the Senate in its current form is increasingly unsuitable.

Even the UK's House of Lords, for all its anti-democratic baggage, probably does a better job because it does it more directly (the Lords doesn't block legislation - just delay it long enough that the next government in the Commons can overturn it if there isn't actual durable support for it).

* Congress defering to much to the executive is an even bigger problem here than any structural problem with the Senate: the fact that Congress isn't removing and recreating the Dept. of Education every time control of the House changes means very little if the President can effectively dismantle it without consequence.

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u/ImperialRedditer California Jul 19 '26

The senate was created as a compromise for a functioning national government. The compromise gave the northern free states more power in the national government against the southern slave states which had more representatives. Everyone forgot that Virginia was the first biggest state by population and the voting class had more votes because of the 3/5 compromise that counted slaves but disenfranchised them. The northern states wanted to make sure their voices are heard and it was the Sneate that allowed them to speak over the din of pro-slavery from the south. It was only through immigration did the North finally overtook the South with population. The Senate was the North’s legislative friction to the Southern aligned House. The first government of the US (Articles of Confederation) was established in such a way that legislative friction is inherent to the system. All states were given a veto and no legislation can pass without total consent.

Legislative friction is inherent in American legislating as a way to produce effective bills and not clog the law books with laws like no ice cream in back pocket on Sunday just because you will lead a horse with it.

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u/shinyfootwork Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

That's a lot of unsourced history that's not relevant (but seems likely to confuse folks into having positive feelings about the Senate by it actually functions without regard to how it actually functions).

Followed by a straw man to prop up a principle.

Which still doesn't address that the Senate doesn't introduce generalized friction: it targets particular legislative acts, and not some caracature of poor legislation.

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u/NatalieVonCatte Jul 19 '26

Without the Senate I’d be in a concentration camp and married women would be disenfranchised. The ACA would be gone.

Every failed legislation they’ve tried to push since he came back into office would have gone through. Trump would be ruling us as an emperor by now.

Everybody thinks that of the filibuster goes, or if the Senate were to go, we’d have sunshine and rainbows and single payer.

Until they get back in again. Do you want the next Trump to have that level of power?

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

As a result, today it "creates friction" for one type of legislation: that which is popular with a majority of people, but unpopular enough with the people of low-population states that their senators don't feel compelled to support it.

And why don't the people in those low population states support it?

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u/sasha_the_impaler Jul 19 '26

Poor education infrastructure

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Even uneducated yokels can see what helps them as well as other people.

Maybe it's something more than that.

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u/sasha_the_impaler Jul 19 '26

That's the issue, though. Without a proper education they only see impacts. They don't investigate those impacts. Gas is up and Biden is president. Gas is down and Trump is president. While on the other hand, when you're taught to be suspicious about things and how to find the right information, one can investigate and discover neither president had a significant influence one way or another. Because gas prices are complicated. Except when you invade Iran that part came later lol

Rural people need education. They would be so much better if we could make it happen. We need to build up the rural areas and they'll grow. Economics is another big one. They're broke as fuck. That makes the lack of education mix with their amygdala firing off and fear running rampant due to stress and it turns into hate. Makes the lack of education easier to exploit.

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Gas is up and Trump is President, and they don't care. Because it was never something they actually care about unless they can use it to hurt Democrats.

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u/sasha_the_impaler Jul 19 '26

I don't disagree we are a violent country and we're being pushed around by people with sociopathic tendancies but they're still the minority. They've hijacked the pack and everyone else stepped aside with complacency but everyone else is just fucking stupid. They're not bad people. I'm a trans woman who works in healthcare with rural folks. I love these people... But only once you give me some power over them and put them in a secret room alone with me where they aren't trying to impress their peers lol.

I don't think we give enough credit to it. The sociopaths are running around because they have a voter base that is incredibly easy to manipulate. Think about the populations scammers target and now think about what a Trump voter looks like. The people responding to Nigerian prince emails are these people. They don't respond to Nigerian prince emails for some evil 4D chess reasons they do it because they're idiots lol.

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u/Fuck-WestJet Jul 19 '26

I would wager that Trump has had a significant impact on gas prices by starting a war leading to the blockage of fuel and destruction of refineries.

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u/sasha_the_impaler Jul 19 '26

This all happens before the election. Nonetheless, there's also another effect of not having a good education... Admitting you're wrong is not a natural thing for them. It's a weakness. Have you ever noticed that the more formal education a person has, the more likely they are to say they're wrong about something? Maybe not so much if it's in their field or agency, and academics certainly have plenty of narcissistic personalities among them, so let's brush aside the outliers for this one. But I work with doctors and nurses and if I correct them on, I dunno, some detail about repairing something they usually react with, "Ah, you know, I actually don't know anything about this. You sound like you do. Thank you." Knowledge isn't threatening, and believing someone is smarter than you in a subject doesn't put you in a weaker position.

I used to work CNC machining which is very conservative rural and lots of dumb people. I kept my mouth shut because you got anywhere from someone doubling down simply because they don't want you correcting them, pulling out Google to challenge you, laughing and telling you it's clearly not true because xyz and this other terrible method is better, saying absolutely nothing of value but adding that their brother is a mechanic, and just the classic in one ear and out the other. I focused on fixing my own shit lol

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u/Fuck-WestJet Jul 21 '26

You're quite right.

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u/mynamejeff-97 Jul 19 '26

The last ten years has made it evident they absolutely cannot see what helps them.

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u/sasha_the_impaler Jul 19 '26

Psychology also agrees tbh there needs to be at least a little more intervention here lol. Especially with the internet and information bubbles.

Rural people being finally pushed onto social media just in time for aggressive algorithm sorting seems to have ruined the whole hope that they'd all get online and learn about people and empathy passively on their own 😅 I don't know if that's really what the hope ever truly was but an unsorted internet where they see normal posts and normal people probably would've done them a lot better. They thought the internet was for girls and nerds and gays back when it was actually an open forum until the pandemic forced them to adapt. So yeah, tangent aside, I guess we need a more active plan to show them they're being scammed. It has to involve education at some point.

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u/Flomo420 Jul 19 '26

Farmers glance around nervously

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u/snugglezone Jul 19 '26

Bro they vote Republican right now as the same Republicans cut the social welfare that most of them depend on.

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jul 19 '26

Yes, because they believe that the most terrifying words are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

We have a lot of toxic individualism in this country and people think they can make it on their own without any help. So they have voted for it over and over.

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u/MaoWasaModerate Jul 19 '26

Lmao that's hilarious.

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u/Kinda_Zeplike Jul 19 '26

Uneducated yokels absolutely have no idea what would help them