The flaw in the Constitution
The current situation and the Supreme Court composition in general demonstrates the fatal flaw in our constitution that is getting worse every year.
McConnell controls the Senate because 30% of the population controls 50% of the senate. By 2040, 30% will control 70% of the senate. This gives that 30% an outsized influence over the make up of the courts, which gives them an outsized influence over the law. This has allowed them to overturn the voting rights act. It empowers them to allow voter suppression by states. It allows them to prevent legislation to make voting easier, fairer, or more equitable from ever reaching the floor of the senate.
And there's nothing we can really do to change it because the constitution says we can't change it.
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The Senate was created for a lot of reasons. One of them was to reassure the smaller states that they would not be subject to the "tyranny of the majority" which concerned a number of folks in the period. Most of these smaller states were in New England: think New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Most of the larger states -- including Virginia, at the time one of the largest states by population, and a slave state -- were opposed to the idea, and the political shenanigans involved in ramming through the Constitution were legion. The entire purpose of the Federalist Papers was to convince New York to vote for the Constitution. Which they only did after the 2/3 majority had decided (same for Virginia and North Carolina; Rhode Island didn't even bother to have a Constitutional convention). The Papers managed to delay the vote long enough so NY wouldn't come in with a "nay."
As the 19th century continued, the slave states realized that the Senate was the main thing protecting their "rights," which were in constant danger of invasion by "Northern Aggression." Those selfsame Northern aggressors became resentful of the southern states dominating the Senate, to say nothing of the Presidency. With the Louisiana Purchase and similar expansion, the problem became acute, but as early as 1787, the Northwest Ordinance forbade slavery in the areas ceded by Virginia ("Northwest" in this case meaning what are now Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana). That set the stage for the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Civil War. The slave states were determined to maintain their "rights" and get their "fair share" of the new lands we stole fair and square from Indians and Mexicans.
Now the smaller states are recognizing that the Senate is the only thing protecting their rights, which they perceive as under attack by evil East and West Coasters. They have a much poorer case (for "oppression"
than the slave states did in the 19th century, but the mechanism of compromise erected to create an effective National government operates in their favor. One may call the idea flawed, but then one needs to explain how the US could have been more efficiently established on different lines. After all, the Constitution was only written to fix the broken system of government under the Articles of Confederation, which was even more flawed than the system we have now.
-- Mal
