re: #21 GeneJockey

I think they’re looking at the same demographic trends everyone else sees, and seeing the end of White Privilege written in it, though they may not even realize that’s what they’re perceiving. They just see it as ‘the End of America’.

This is why there was such a surge in Voter ID and other vote suppression tactics, as well as a resurgence in any number of other anti-democracy ideas, like repealing the 17th Amendment, since direct election of Senators has not yet given them the All-Wingnut Senate of their dreams.

I’m going to attempt to sever anti-17th Amendmentism from the rest of the wingnut nonsense. I don’t think that repeal of the 17th is a good idea but I do agree with the fundamental kernel here:

The Senate was, as laid out in the Constitution, supposed to be the voice of the states not of the people. Once you’ve re-made the Senate into state-wide House seats you have fundamentally altered who/what it represents. And the amazingly anti-democratic nature of the Senate makes a strange mix with the democratic character of the 17th Amendment.

As I said, I’m not a fan of repealing it because, given the amazing amount of corruption that exists at the state level, I can’t imagine that going back to the pre-17th situation would be a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that the 17th was a particularly good idea.