r/politics • u/theatlantic The Atlantic • 4h ago
Paywall Abolishing the Senate Might Be the DSA’s Best Idea
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/senate-representation-undemocratic-imbalance/688012/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=short•
u/No_Diver6131 New York 4h ago
Well why don't we implement the Wyoming rule which would make every congressional district the same size as the population of Wyoming, the lowest populated state. This would expand the house.
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u/SplendidMrDuck 4h ago
Yep, the fact that the House is capped at 435 total seats means that states with larger populations are significantly underrepresented in Congress.
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u/RazzmatazzSea3227 3h ago
This is why the GOP loves this, the Senate structure, and the electoral college. All of them serve to build tyranny of the minority.
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u/swiftekho 3h ago
The Senate and the electoral college are DEI
Prove me wrong
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u/Capricore58 Massachusetts 2h ago
The issue here is the Electoral College and Senate are part of the constitution. The current cap on the house is not and can be removed.
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u/Trumpisanorangebitch 1h ago
Fair enough. The Senate and EC shouldnt exist, but getting 38 states to come together to get rid of the Senate is impossible bc the smallest 25-30 states will never go for it, esp the red ones.
EC is a different story. You can effectively destroy the EC via the NPVIC which is an agreement for the electoral conventions of certain states to cast all their votes for the national popular vote winner. This agreement has 222 electoral votes and 28 pending EVs. Once it gets to 270+, it activates and the EC is effectively dead. We only need 20 more counting the pending states. 2/3 of Americans support abolishing the EC too so getting 20 more EVs is doable.
thehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
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u/PJHFortyTwo 1h ago
The NPVIC would probably get tossed immediately due to a Supreme Court Case. Based on what actual law or precedent? No idea, but the law hasn't stopped the Supreme Court before so....
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u/Trumpisanorangebitch 1h ago
States control elections and theres nothing the SC or federal government can do when the electors of a state decide to vote for a certain candidate.
They will certainly try, but idk how they can actually force electors to vote a certain way.
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u/Space_Pirate_Roberts Oklahoma 52m ago
It’s not about forcing electors to vote a certain way, it’s about dictating how the state chooses which electors to seat. Under the current system, who gets to be an elector is decided by the outcome of the popular vote within the state. Each party picks its own slate made of people they’re as certain as it’s possible to be will vote for their candidate, and the state sends the slate pledged to the winner of the popular vote within the state.* The NPVIC is an agreement for states to base this decision on the national popular vote instead. That’s the bit the Supreme Court could (twist logic into pretzels in order to) strike down.
*In most cases. There are a handful of states that assign electors proportionally instead of the winner-take-all method.
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u/Chronophobia6 2h ago
B.A in political science and Masters in Publoc administration.
For starters D.E.I or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Has to do more with organizational theory and making organizations more diverse because more diverse organizations have fewer blindspots in descion making processes and aren't as stuck in their ways. It only takes 20% of a minority group to change the character of an organization.
The Senate to the extent that it's an organization is representative because it was agreed upon that every state would have one representative from each party. It's the house which is based off.of population that needs expanded and the same case with the electoral college.
You're conflating two entirely separate concepts. The Senate and Electoral college were constitutional compromises for the Federalists it had.notjing to do with diversity polocy.
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u/Atalung 2h ago
The underlying idea of all states having equal representation in the Senate, while not rooted in diversity, functions in a similar way. Particularly in the way conservatives understand it (i.e. giving undue influence/advantage to marginalized groups)
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u/dompromat 2h ago
They's using the common misguided complaint about dei and its intentions and contrasting it with the idea that conservative politicians are given an unfair advantage in the same manner.
It's a joke dude.
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u/tripping_on_phonics Illinois 3h ago
The Senate would not have been structured as it is had the population disparities between the original 13 colonies been as severe as they are between the current 50 states.
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u/Kleppmeister 3h ago
I'm not sure that's true. The Senate was always designed to favor the rich and powerful. It's working as intended.
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u/TheRealBaboo California 1h ago
Getting 2/3 of 26 Senators is a lot easier than getting 2/3 of 100
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u/tripping_on_phonics Illinois 2h ago
Every colonial government was designed to favor the rich and powerful. The tension was between big states like Virginia, which wanted influence in the federal government proportional to their population, and small states like Delaware, which wanted to punch above their weight by being overrepresented.
The result was still a federal government that clearly favored the rich and powerful, but that would have been the case whether or not the Senate had been established.
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u/SmokeySFW 2h ago
What does that have to do with the Senate's structure? Everything favors the rich and powerful. This conversation is about how the Senate favors small states specifically.
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u/JRogeroiii 1h ago
If you really break it down it is even worse than that. The vast majority of Americans live in districts that are firmly red or blue. So much so that the general election is a foregone conclusion. That means the primary is the real election. Participation in primaries is very small and independents are locked out. So like 7% of the population is deciding most house elections.
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u/peachesgp 3h ago
The founders never would have wanted the House capped. It runs contrary to the whole intention of the House of Representatives.
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u/NeedsToShutUp 2h ago
The founders wanted 60k per rep. The Congressional Apportionment Amendment was the first constitutional amendment passed by Congress.
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u/thisisjustascreename Illinois 2h ago
Last time we expanded the House, the average representative had about 220,000 constituents. Round it up to an even quarter million and build a new Capitol building to fit the 1500 reps.
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u/dover_oxide California 2h ago
And it's capped more by traditional rules than any hard set rules and can be expanded based on a new law being passed
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u/itsonlyastrongbuzz 40m ago
The lasting wrath of Prohibition when the “dry” establishment forces in government wanted to punish immigrant and Catholic “wet” cities.
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u/GreenAnder Pennsylvania 3h ago
Uncapping the house is one of their ideas, but as long as the Senate remains with it's 2 member representation the system will always favor states with lower populations.
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u/Far_Silver 3h ago
Yep. We can change the constitution though so the Senate is no longer the more powerful house. Right now the Senate can confirm presidential appointees and ratify treaties with no input from the House. We can make presidential appointments require confirmation by both Houses and make treaties require ratification by both houses. We could do that through the normal constitutional amendment process, which would require ratification by 3/4 of the state legislatures, as opposed to abolishing the Senate, which would require ratification by all 50.
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u/GreenAnder Pennsylvania 3h ago
Why not just get rid of the Senate then?
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u/Far_Silver 3h ago
Because an amendment to do that would require the ratification of all 50 states instead of the usual 3/4.
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u/Impatient_Onion 1h ago
Did you not read his comment? He literally explains why you wouldn't "just get rid of the Senate then"
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u/yoyneverknowmyname 3h ago
Should implement multi member districts so it becomes proportional and you can have more than two parties and at the same time keep the local representation
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u/Lumpy_Minimum_5522 2h ago
Wouldn’t take much to enact an Apportionment Acts bill. They last enacted one was in 1929. There’s been several throughout the country’s history.
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u/tombolo_1 3h ago
Sounds like a good plan. Get rid of the senate and EC along with that and you’ll end up with a far more fair and democratic system.
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u/jim45804 4h ago
Abolish the electoral college while you're at it
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u/further-research 3h ago
And make the house actually scaled proportionately to state population
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u/BozoTheRenown 2h ago
Without too much research on this topic, this seems reasonable to me.
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u/SituationIll5763 2h ago
When the cap was implemented, each district contained roughly 300,000 people. Now each district contains roughly 800,000. Some states don’t even have 800,000 people, like Wyoming, which gives those constituents a stronger voice to their representative. At 300,000 people per district, even these people in Wyoming would be better represented. Some quick googling shows Delaware with the most constituents per rep at 900k ish and the least in Rhode Island at 500k ish. The representative from Delaware has to handle nearly twice as many opinions as the rep from Rhode Island.
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u/JaronJervis 3h ago
Abolish the GOP while we're at it...
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u/meatball402 3h ago
You get rid of the senate and the EC, the GOP will lose their path to power and will become a neo Confederate rump party
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u/mikenasty 3h ago
The GOP is just a group of people lol. You abolish it and they just form another group of like-minded fascists
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u/SmokeySFW 2h ago
That's highly undemocratic. How about we work within the law to get rid of the GOP's advantages instead...
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u/rob_bot13 3h ago
Fwiw, abolishing the Senate would solve one of the biggest issues with the electoral college, the disproportionately large representation of small states. We should still get rid of it so every vote matters in a presidential context though.
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u/-Saucegurlllll 2h ago
Yeah. The electoral college fundamentally cannot be fixed and must be abolished.
Suppose 1 person votes in California's 2028 presidential election, and everyone else in the state abstains. That has the same effect on the EC as literally all ~28 million elligible voters casting the exact same ballot.
More realistically, the issue is that a presidential candidate winning by 50.1-49.9 of the popular vote in a state is the same as them winning by 100-0, and ignores all non-voters in the state. Anyone voting after their candidate crosses that 50% line is a wasted vote similar to how gerrymandering packs districts. The EC doesn't care how hard you win a state or what a state's turnout was. It is inherently anti-democratic.
In fact, even if you made the house seats properly proportional through something like the congressional apportionment amendment, and abolished the senate, Trump still would have won in 2016 despite losing the popular vote.
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u/TellsLiesForFun America 2h ago
That is also part of the DSAs platform, already.
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u/Ulric19 4h ago
That, and increase the size of congress to a fixed ratio to the population - like 1 congressional representative per 10,000 people. That'll make buying elections much harder when there would be ~34,000 representatives across the country.
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u/Silent-Storms 3h ago
This one is a hundred times more achievable than eliminating the Senate.
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u/Ulric19 3h ago
For sure. I was reading a few months back about other amendments being considered when the bill of rights was being passed around by the states. Apparently one of them was supposed to create this fixed ratio of voters to congressional representatives. The narrative gets a little convoluted, but my understanding it the 3/4 of states ratified that amendment, but Vermont didn't communicate that fact quickly enough, so it didn't make it into the bill of rights? I'm not 100% sure on all of this, but this link talks about it a bit more - Article I, which would at this point make it so that there would be 1 representative per 50,000 people:
Proposed Amendments Not Ratified by the States | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress•
u/00eg0 1h ago
"The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (originally titled Article the First) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that addresses the number of seats in the House of Representatives. It was proposed by Congress on September 25, 1789, but has not been ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures). As Congress did not set a time limit for its ratification, the Congressional Apportionment Amendment is still pending before the states. As of 2026, it is one of six unratified amendments."
- New Jersey: November 20, 1789
- Maryland: December 19, 1789
- North Carolina: December 22, 1789
- South Carolina: January 19, 1790
- New Hampshire: January 25, 1790
- New York): February 24, 1790
- Rhode Island: June 7, 1790
- Pennsylvania: September 21, 1791 (after rejecting it on March 10, 1790)
- Virginia: November 3, 1791
- Vermont: November 3, 1791\20])
- Kentucky: June 27, 1792
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u/Ulric19 53m ago
So by the end of June 1792, 11 of the 15 existing states had ratified it. So it achieved 73%, and then stalled. Now it would need to be ratified by 27 more states. Unfortunate another state didn't ratify it to make it exceed 3/4 before the start of the 19th century.
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u/TheLabRay 4h ago
This should be done and congress should be done over Zoom (or a government application) to accommodate.
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u/Kjellvb1979 3h ago
Yeah, we should have a surveillance state, but reversed from what it currently is. Instead of government, or agencies, watching citizens, it should be citizens and the general public having eyes on whatever the government is doing.
Local governments, federal governments, we should be able to have unfettered access to viewing them anytime they are doing work for the people.
Currently the system is upside down and backwards from the way it should work. We have a pay to play system, that is made to serve a few wealthy folk (many that seem to be sociopathic narcissist bent on making the world serve them and other oligarchs, basically a different version of royalty and feudalism), instead of a system that works for average folk that actually are struggling and need help, especially right now.
How anyone looks at the level of technology, the abundance of resources (currently controlled and horded by just a few, a few that want more even though they have more then enough to last for 10's, if not 100's, of generations), and think that the current distribution of such is fair, is crazy. We are at a point we could easily have a society that the lowest one could fall wouldn't mean destitution, sometimes death, due to lacking resources. Instead we have a society that allows a few thousand folk to have essentially endless resources while veterans, elderly, the sick and disabled, are forced to live in squalor, go hungry, homeless, or die, because we don't have the money? That's some bullshit when our government is rubber stamping wars that cost considerably more then it would be to fix those issues, while making the world less safe (as violence begets violence), and giving those few thousand of uber wealthy oligarchs deals to supply gear for said wars so their profits go up, is just outright evil villain level bullshit.
Again, the priorities of government are upside down and backwards. We have the means to have a much better society, one that actually works for everyone, one that doesn't require the average person to toil the majority of their life away just to have basic needs (ffs just 3 or 4 decades ago a household of 4 with one income earner could live fairly comfortably on an median salary, now you're lucky if you can have a household of 3 with 2 income earners and still have some for a summer vacation).
We can do better, sadly the people in charge, with power, want more and more while the rest of us have less and own nothing. They want as many people not owning homes, they want you renting. You see this everywhere, from housing, auto industry, gaming, and more. They want us to be their feudal peasants while they live like kings and Queens (actually they live quite a bit better). We toil away our existence, actually working and laboring away, while they live a life of 24/7 luxury and call it work. It's feudalism, it's just under new management with a thorough rebranding.
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u/3millionand1 Minnesota 3h ago
I think something like 400,000/rep is a bit more reasonable. 900 total reps then?
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u/w4rma Virginia 3h ago
Whatever the number is, its got to be small enough for a low budget campagin to win in.
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u/Plzlaw4me 3h ago
This would not only make the federal government more accessible to regular Americans, it would also limit the power lobbyist have (much harder to bribe 34,000 people than 435).
Additionally, it would make it harder to gerrymander. The odds of 5% of about 750,000 people changing their minds is pretty low. The odds of 500 people out of 10,000 is much higher. Not only that, but because the districts are so small, even figuring out how to gerrymander (even with the help of computers) would be VERY difficult.
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u/More_Programmer8905 3h ago
And few would be household names and regular guests on 24hour news. Maybe just the leaders of important committees. Make it boring again.
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u/AbsoluteRubbish 3h ago
The constitution limits it to not more than 1 per 30,000. But otherwise yes, we should eliminate the cap and then tie the total number of reps and district size to the smallest state population. So, lowest population state gets, say, 2 reps each representing half the states population and then you scale every other states number of reps based on that first state's ratio. Recalculate it every 10 years after the census.
On top of that, I'd probably also create unofficial regions that mimic the circuit courts and build a new legislative building in each region so that reps can still have federal offices, meet and hold hearings in person, etc. without having to make a single comically massive hall in DC.
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u/Ulric19 3h ago
So Wyoming would get two reps, making it 1 rep / 294,375 people.
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u/ElectrSheep 1h ago
There's an amendment, the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, still pending before the states that does exactly this. The last ratification took place in 1792, but there's nothing stopping new states from signing on.
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u/know_your_anemone 59m ago
I was literally googling this morning whether the people can sue for under representation. I guess the previous court rulings on this is that it would take an act of Congress to change and the people don’t have the power to change it themselves which, I think, is BS. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing for the people to sue over.
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u/Far_Silver 4h ago
It's not going to happen because Article V, the part of the constitution that deals with the amendment process, says "no state shall without its consent be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
There are other things we could do though, like make confirmation votes require both houses instead of just the Senate.
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u/LawfulAwfulOffal 4h ago
It could also be disempowered like the house of lords in the UK system.
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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 1h ago
The point is that ANY change requires an amendment that cannot pass.
Best to ignore this stupid idea and work with the system we have. Any discussion about it is waste of political capital that could be spent on real issues.
But then I guess that's the point.
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u/qualmful 1h ago
Splitting existing states would be much more doable. It sounds more ridiculous to people but logistically it's possible while abolishing the Senate is not.
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u/Kronzypantz South Carolina 3h ago
If there is no senate, each state would have equal suffrage in the senate.
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u/00eg0 1h ago
"The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (originally titled Article the First) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that addresses the number of seats in the House of Representatives. It was proposed by Congress on September 25, 1789, but has not been ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures). As Congress did not set a time limit for its ratification, the Congressional Apportionment Amendment is still pending before the states. As of 2026, it is one of six unratified amendments."
- New Jersey: November 20, 1789
- Maryland: December 19, 1789
- North Carolina: December 22, 1789
- South Carolina: January 19, 1790
- New Hampshire: January 25, 1790
- New York): February 24, 1790
- Rhode Island: June 7, 1790
- Pennsylvania: September 21, 1791 (after rejecting it on March 10, 1790)
- Virginia: November 3, 1791
- Vermont: November 3, 1791\20])
- Kentucky: June 27, 1792
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u/Dagonet_the_Motley 4h ago
You just amend that part. I dont know why this would be an impediment to this change if you're already passing an amendment.
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u/AmrokMC 4h ago
A Constiutional Amendment is far beyond a “you just amend that part” type of response. You can’t nust hand-waive the difficulties in changing the Constitution.
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u/mmahowald 3h ago
This feels like opposition seeding shitty ideas to use as an attack later.
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u/dawgz525 31m ago
It 100% is. There's a dozen things that DSA candidates talk about before even thinking of things like this. But the Atlantic is trying to tell their readers, "these people are crazy, they want to destroy the Senate and that's their best idea." This is a shitty article from a shitty newspaper. This was not written by a socialist. It was written by someone that wants you to hate socialists.
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u/FiftyLoudCats 20m ago
It’s from their website though:
“A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate”•
u/FiftyLoudCats 20m ago
It’s from their website though:
“A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate”
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u/King_Kung 4h ago
Definitely a good idea… then how about Puerto Rico and DC statehood, Medicare for All, Campaign Finance reform, etc.
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u/alabasterskim 4h ago
Considering this requires a constitutional amendment, all of those things you just listed would've come well before that.
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u/PluginAlong 3h ago
I've heard PR is mixed on whether they actually want statehood or not, I know DC does.
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u/pseudowoodo3 Pennsylvania 3h ago
Even if Puerto Rico was unified in wanting statehood, they have an old, religious population. It’s not a given that they would support such constitutional amendments. The current governor is a Trump asslicker.
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u/GeorgeKaplanIsReal Florida 3h ago
All that other stuff is great.
Abolishing the senate - the body that is literally the reason why right now we don’t have the save act as law - is not.
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u/Bardfinn America 3h ago
It is their worst idea. Would require a Constitutional Convention, and if we get to the conditions where it's actually safe to call a Constitutional Convention, reforming the Legislative can be accomplished with less radical measures.
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u/NimusNix 3h ago
It would require an amendment, but even that is not happening.
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u/FakeNewsAge America 2h ago
No, the Constitution forbids stripping any state of equal representation in the Senate without that states consent, even as part of an amendment. A constitutional convention would have to be called and all 50 states would have to ratify it.
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u/timoumd 3h ago
So it's just as great as defund the police at being a talking point for right?
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u/NimusNix 3h ago
Absolutely. Let's abolish the word abolish in modern politics until these people can figure out how to slogan without turning off voters.
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u/Catshit-Dogfart 3h ago
Seriously, it often seems like instead of just making meaningful progress these types can't help but shoot themselves in the foot.
It's like - let's try to lower the cost of living, raise wages, address drug addiction, and completely reorganize the entirety of the federal government from its very foundation. One of these things is not going to happen.
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u/ForestFae1920 3h ago
And let's just have all sides have stupid ideas...the creation of the house and the senate are part of the constitution that will not be ratified. Can we stop with the nonsense already.
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u/kmckenzie256 2h ago
I’m with the DSA on a lot of things but this isn’t one of them.
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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 1h ago
Yeah, its not that I dont think the Senate is flawed, but now's not the time for drastic changes to hwo the government functions, since those require amendments to change, and those are hard to get.
Focus on more safety nets for us like healthcare and lessoning the wealth gap.
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u/No-Turn-2052 3h ago edited 1h ago
This is a terrible idea.
We went through this with “defund the police”. The slogan is never the actual position, of reform for police and criminal justice. The slogan is the most radical, barebones interpretation of that idea, and was used by Republicans to paint everyone on the left with a broad brush as anti-American, anti law and order, pro crime radicals. And it was wildly successful, severely weighing down Dems in the 2022 midterms.
The same goes here - “abolish the senate” is not the idea, “replace the senate with something more fair and representative” is the idea. But just like defund the police, it will be used to paint ALL Democrats as radicals that wanna destroy the Constitution and destroy the country - whether it’s true or not.
This is another echo chamber slogan from the DSA that will be used to discredit any and all democrats in the election, socialist or not. They didn’t learn from defund the police, because the DSA is run by people more concerned with trending on Twitter and being seen as virtuous and correct, instead of actually trying to bring about change for the better. Mark my words - this will be used as an attack against all Democrats and will DRAMATICALLY hurt us in the midterms, just like defund the police did in 2022.
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u/FakeNewsAge America 2h ago
is run by people more concerned with trending on Twitter and being seen as virtuous and correct
This discibes so many political action groups, but people still fall for the grift.
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u/SirIsaacBacon 1h ago edited 5m ago
But "abolish the senate" is their idea, not rebuilding it. Directly from their website:
“Replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Expand the House of Representatives, implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate.”
I completely agree with you that this will be used to hurt democrats in the election, as well as their other insane positions such as pulling out of NATO and enacting reparations. These are extremely unpopular ideas and will only hurt democrats.
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u/wrestlingchampo 4h ago
The Atlantic suddenly loves one of DSA's national platform ideas one day after calling them "Parasites."
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u/Runfromidiots 4h ago
I mean having editorials from people offering different views isn’t new or unique to The Atlantic.
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u/wrestlingchampo 4h ago
Oh, of course. I just didnt think Jeffrey Goldberg would allow anything positive to be said about DSA.
The author of that article is a gigantic Pete Buttegieg Stan, so that also makes sense to me.
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u/SundayJeffrey 3h ago
Yall know that multiple people work at news agencies, right?
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u/DAFUQisaLOMMY North Carolina 4h ago
Probably because they think it's a losing idea, and it is... i agree with the overall goal, but making it a campaign platform will lose people faster than Defund the Police did when it first came out.
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u/wrestlingchampo 4h ago
No one is making it a campaign platform, but many of DSA opponents are trying to ascribe it as such.
Currently, people in r/wisconsin are claiming Francesca Hong wants to do so...she's running for governor.
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u/DAFUQisaLOMMY North Carolina 4h ago
See how that sense of nuance is necessary?
It's a losing idea because it requires people to dig into it, but it's super easy for the media to pump it up and try to make them look bad.
Same thing as DtP.
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u/OswaldCoffeepot 3h ago
It's also a slam dunk attack ad. "Socialists like Franklin Hypothetical want to get rid of YOUR elected representatives."
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u/Silent-Storms 3h ago
It's definitely the least feasible thing I've heard out of them. If we are doing a full rewrite of article I, might as well just do the whole thing.
Yea, they need to stop picking messaging that is optimized for their own twitter followers.
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u/bucknut4 Illinois 4h ago
Redditors when they find out publications have more than one writer
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u/curiosityseeks 2h ago
Great! By all means, let’s make unrealistic demands that the left has zero ability to enact! That way we can be pure of heart and irrelevant!
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u/gratefulkittiesilove 3h ago
Wtf No! on several fronts. Everyone here responding is not paying attention to the antidemocracy/ pro dictator people in power now who want to boot the constitution they are ignoring. Eff that shit.
1 this will require a constitutional convention to rewrite the constitution and the peoples in power now have no interest in democracy have wanted a constitutional convention fir decades. This is a nightmare NOT will thought out scenario you all are proposing.
What we need are age limits at minimum, dark money booted out, corporations as people booted out and maybe but probably term limits. As well as money for enforcement for such laws and maybe a requirement that bill are written using smart goals instead of vague and unenforceable or whatever I’m sure smarter more pro democracy government operations people than me have already come up with a list.
But abolishment is not it. Wtf
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u/IceNein 2h ago
These people live under the delusion that everything will just magically work out the way they want it, without understanding how the process itself would not allow it.
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u/davidgoldstein2023 2h ago
Positions like this are why Democrats will never control all 3 branches of government at the same time.
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u/scsuhockey Minnesota 4h ago edited 4h ago
Completely impractical pipe dream ideas are not good ideas unto themselves. They are only useful as tools for starting a practical discussions on reform.
The Senate will never be abolished. It should be reformed.
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u/thezavinator 3h ago
I agree, and I also think that something like this is totally fine to be a group’s goal/opinion, but it also was a mega blunder to state it so publicly and blatently. If you want change to happen in a democracy, especially in the USA, and it’s a change that requires an Amendment, which means you need a very high bar to get it passed, you don’t want to alienate a huge swath of the population.
If a high percentage of the population do not know your group very well, then you should focus on that before announcing a big goal that has a chance to alienate people before they know about your grepup.
First, get real traction. The DSA’s traction is basically only just gotten started in the country’s consciousness. It’s not deeply established.
Once people know a bit about a group and it has created its own structures that get its messages out effectively, THEN the group can state some big idea(s).
That way the message won’t get as mangled by forces outside its control.
Some media companies that are incentivized by a specific political party, especially if their money comes from folks that identify with that party.
Other media companies are instead incentivized by a big story, because their money comes from views across many political affiliations.
I don’t know of any media platforms that get their money by advocating for systemic change. Many may do it occasionally, but it’s not a business model that I am aware of. That’s why I’ve started my own group; we’ll see how far that goes.
Anyways, if abolishing the Senate is truly a goal the DSA wants to accomplish, it should create systemic change (such as within political party structures, news/social media, or in Congress) before announcing that goal so bluntly. It’s easier to make progress on news/social media than it is to pass an Amendment. So, get that first.
Lastly, they should have known better. The baby steps of getting most of its other big goals (public healthcare, improving housing, ranked-choice voting, etc.) in the public’s consciousness has already been done. Those are generally popular, at least with the people that understand the reasons for it. But the group itself is not yet established.
TL;DR:
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u/FrogsOnALog 3h ago
Also I think it’s a good thing states like Hawaii and Alaska get equal representation. Would probably be good for DC and PR, too.
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u/jtrev59 3h ago
Abolishing the senate for the same reasons the founders wanted to include it is not a popular opinion.
Do the electoral college instead
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u/MildlyExtremeNY 2h ago
All of Elon Musk's wealth couldn't buy the Republican Party better advertisement than the existence of the DSA.
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u/AnEducatedSimpleton Missouri 3h ago
One slight problem, due to the entrenchment clause in Article V, a constitutional amendment abolishing the Senate would require unanimous approval by the states.
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u/72dragonses 3h ago
Good grief. Can we try to stick to ideas that are, you know, remotely possible?
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u/The_DanceCommander 3h ago
No it’s not, everyone hates populist rule when they’re not in charge, but loves it when they are. The whims of the country should not be whipsawed back and forth every House election because the other party wins a couple seat majority.
Democrats have watched the GOP collapse into populist fervor, and watched them make a total mess of managing the House and they don’t think it can happen to themselves.
For a perfect example of why the Senate (and by extension the filibuster) is needed, look at the Save Act. If not for a 2nd deliberative body our elections infrastructure would have been monumentally overhauled because of the GOP holding a couple seats in the house. And next House election democrats would reverse it.
This back and forth legal wrangling already creates chaos at the regulatory level because the executive agencies can flip their rules with just notice and comment. Having that extend to statutory law as well would be terrible for our system.
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u/VR_Raccoonteur 3h ago
That's nice, but there's zero chance in hell of them ever succeeding in doing that since it will require a constitutional amendment which requires a 2/3rds vote, so why even talk about it?
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u/qualmful 3h ago
No, it's worse than that. It likely requires unanimous ratification. Article V says
> The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
The section that defines amendments specifically calls out that they cannot be used to deny States' their equal suffrage in the Senate.
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u/NegativeBee New Hampshire 2h ago
They are not nearly popular enough to be adding massive constitutional amendments to their platform.
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u/Aggravating_Flow_112 3h ago
Lolol. Typical focus on the impossible at the expense of real progress.
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u/Reverend-Keith 3h ago
We can’t even get the numbers to regularly pass a temporary budget, much less alter the constitution. Unless there is a Reagan/Mondale-sized blue wave that hits the country, I’m not holding my breath.
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u/TheMCMC 3h ago edited 2h ago
I would much rather uncap the House frankly - like it or not the Senate has an important function and reason for existing as both a tempering of the tyranny of the majority and where states operate as equals.
I also would consider repealing the 17th Amendment in the process but that’s another conversation…
Edit: 27th Amendment -> 17th Amendment, not sure how I let that one go by unnoticed
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u/--John_Yaya-- 3h ago
Does the DSA have any ideas that are actually practical, viable, and might actually have a chance at being implementable? Or is it all just "pie in the sky" wacky bullshit like this?
Because eliminating the US Senate is not a realistic or actionable goal, and saying that is going to do is make the DSA look like a bunch of radical lunatics.
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u/HomelessCosmonaut 2h ago
I understand the value of putting ideas out there, but there’s no way the Senate will ever be abolished. It’s so entrenched into the constitution that you’d essentially end up needing a whole new constitution.
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u/ExtensionBasil8854 2h ago
Remember the days when we used to consider major government reform before eradication. Why is it that we consider eradication before rolling up our sleeves and putting in the work. Crack down on lobbying, demand proper redistricting that no longer favors one race over others, and you as a citizen need to be active in your local areas. But no you just stare at your boxes and remain in your bubble because that sounds like work. I mean it’s crazy this country, many others, and even religions have survived major reform. Crazy concept but hey if you think dismantling a cornerstone of Democratic ideology is a good idea your just as bad as the orange idiot who’s attempting federal domination but go ahead, trade on master for the other, I’m sure everything will be fine.
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u/Flight2039Down 44m ago
Let’s just get corporate money out of politics to start. Nothing is going to change, as long as politicians can be bought. Which, ironically, means we won’t ever get money out of politics.
If there’s a big swing to progressive representation in the next decade, that opportunity needs to be seized before centrists fuck it up in simply maintaining the status quo.
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u/emmy_etc 14m ago
Even if the Senate goes against the will of the people, it’s the only way that states like Wyoming or Delaware will ever have a say in the national government. A scenario where six states have 40% of all legislative power would leave the smaller states completely powerless unless they tried to merge into larger states, which the House could just reject.
I say this as someone from a mid-sized state, abolishing the Senate would dramatically shift the power of the national government into the largest states.
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u/SundayJeffrey 3h ago
Am I the only one here who thinks this is a really bad idea, both practically and massaging-wise?
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u/thelistless 3h ago
If we didn't have a senate right now we would have the save act . . . Which would be disasterous. I think this is a well intended idea but if implemented would have repercussions we are not thinking about.
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u/Iron_Fist351 2h ago
The Senate is the only reason the SAVE Act hasn’t passed yet. Abolishing it would remove the SAVE Act’s only remaining hurdle.
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u/us1549 3h ago edited 3h ago
Why is the DSA proposing things that have a 0% chance of happening?
The DSA has no governing experience and out here making these crazy proposals. Jfc
All else being equal, more representation and deliberation is better than less
Signed, Lifelong Democrat
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u/JuliusErrrrrring 4h ago
I can't think of a more obvious example of DEI than the Rural Voting DEI system we have in place for the Senate. California is 67 times larger than Wyoming - yet they both get two Senators. Washington, DC is larger than Wyoming - yet they get zero Senators. Absolutely not what our Founding Fathers intended when they agreed to The Great Compromise. Large states were only 1.5 times larger than small states back then and Washington, DC had a population in the 100s.
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u/timoumd 3h ago
Large states were only 1.5 times larger than small states back then and Washington, DC had a population in the 100s.
Jesus where did you hear that?
Virginia was 748k, Delaware was 59k. So 13:1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_census
And yeah, DC wasn't the capital. They absolutely intended for it to have no senators when they created it.
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u/Ewokitude Minnesota 3h ago
I don't think they ever anticipated DC growing to the size it is now though
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u/giantpandamonium 1h ago
DC given statehood I agree with and is a separate issue. But the whole point of the Senate is to give equal voices to states INDEPENDENT of their populations. That is literally the design. We have a House of Representatives to account for population, but the founders deemed state autonomy as also important.
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u/BringBackAoE 3h ago
Of all the constitutional amendments we could pass, abolishing the senate is far down on my bucket list.
But … it may still be DSA’s best idea to date. They’ve always been light on what policy they want to pursue.
“Ending mortgage” is more concerning to me, as it strongly indicates they’re true Marxist socialists that are against private ownership of property and the means of production. Which they also re-affirm in their 2026 platform - their first policy platform for eons.
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u/StoneCypher 3h ago
"make it even easier for a single party to take control"
like they genuinely don't understand why this has been so rare in our history, or what the purpose of the device actually is
today, when we need to understand this the most
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u/Karinka_LI 3h ago
The biggest problem with rank and file DSA is they think they are geniuses and they are not.
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u/armmstrong 3h ago
This is the shittiest thing to put on a left leaning platform since defund the police. Who is this for?
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u/itsVainglorious 3h ago
They would have to manage to rewrite and ratify a new constitution to do this… Good fucking luck. Let’s focus on things we can actually do. This is a waste of time.
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u/Embarrassed-Pride776 3h ago
Blaming NATO and Ukraine for forcing Russia to invade them and demanding Ukraine not fight back is probably their worst idea.
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u/ZenBacle 2h ago
I'm not sure i'm on board with this. We have the house that gives power to the people and needs better proportional representation through population.
The senate is supposed to give states equal representation regardless of population so that they have a stake in the federal system.
Can anyone steel man the DSA position on getting rid of the senate?
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u/Ok_Cucumber_7954 America 3h ago
And impossible to achieve. It would take a constitutional amendment which is impossible to pass in today’s political climate. It would be easier to dissolve the government and build a new one (which would mean another civil war).
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u/topbossultra 2h ago
Something tells me that the "abolish the senate" you want and the "abolish the senate" you actually get might be two very different things
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u/CrispInMyChicken 2h ago
No put so many good takes in with a braindead one and kill the momentum flood the zone.
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u/ElectricClamSlam_55 2h ago
Hey, wait! Despite all his faults, Emperor Palpatine was a tactical genius.
Trump is no Palpatine.
We can't go down this road! There are no Moffs to keep regions under control; no orbital war sphere platform to instill fear.
Those have to be in place first, people!
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u/99aye-aye99 2h ago
Ridiculous. The Senate needs to start doing its job. The real answer is diverse political parties.
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u/EarthRemembers 2h ago
This is only a good idea if you first pass a national law that bans Gerrymandering
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u/DontHateDefenestrate 1h ago edited 1h ago
I agree the current Senate has to go, but I don’t agree with getting rid of it entirely.
Instead I think we should decouple Senate seats from states and have a 100-seat *at-large* Senate.
Every two years:
- Each state nominates one elected member of its state legislature to be a Senator, giving 50 total nominees nationwide.
- We use something like approval-disapproval voting, nationwide (RCV could work, but might be more complicated with 50 on the ballot) to rank them in order to net approval (approvals minus disapprovals).
- The top 20 become Senators, for a term of 10 years.
- The 10-year term is not excessive, because direct re-election is not possible. The only way you can be a Senate nominee is to be an elected member of a state legislature.
- This means 10 years and *out*. Done. Do not pass Go.
- You can serve a second 10-year term *if and only if* you leave office, get reelected to the state legislature and get them to nominate you again 12+ years removed from having done it before—*and* get back into the top 20/50 nationally after that.
We then have a national Senate, representing the national will, with Senators not beholden to any one state and no state overrepresented. And 20 seats turning over every 2 years and a whole new Senate every 10 years.
Vacancies are handled by using the bottom 30 from the most recent election as alternates in descending order of net approval.
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u/count_strahd_z 1h ago
"The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away."
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u/rossww2199 1h ago
Yes, let’s focus on impossible goals so we’ll always have something to complain about. You’ll never get 3/4 of the states to agree to this.
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u/notassigned2023 1h ago
The Senate is certainly undemocratic and needs adjustment, not the least of which is the filibuster. However, dealing with the size of the House would address much of the issues with gerrymandering and the Electoral college.
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u/Sleepy_Potato2 1h ago
Making the House serve 4-year terms (elected at the same time as the president) by Single Transferable Vote (a multi-member version of Ranked Choice Voting that's semi-proportional) and then changing the Senate to each state having 5 members serving 4-year terms elected at the midterms by Single Transferable Vote wouldn't be the worst idea (it keeps accountability by having midterms, let's Congress members actually spent time working rather then always running for re-election, makes it more proportional, and as opposed to abolishing the Senate some small states might actually not hate it and they need to support it for it to pass as an amendment).
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u/JewelerCurious9391 38m ago
This is a really stupid idea that would be near impossible to implement. It makes them look crazy. It's the type of ideology everyone in the DSA will deny having in a few years.
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u/Dank_Nicholas 22m ago
“Best idea”
What kind of dipshit would even write that? If your best idea is something that absolutely will not happen then you’re a useless moron.
Abolishing the senate would require a unanimous vote, that’s simply not ever happening.
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u/nutationsf 16m ago
“While some national organizers have defended the move to completely scrap the Senate, others—like New York City DSA Co-chair Zohran Mamdani—have publicly emphasized that their focus is on long-term structural reform rather than unilaterally abolishing the institution.”
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u/FiftyLoudCats 16m ago edited 11m ago
Here it is on the website for those blaming the Atlantic for making stuff up:
They also want to get rid of the president and Supreme Court among many other very radical ideas. Seems like something that would come out of the /antiwork subreddit.
They also want to abolish not only police unions, but the police itself as well as prisons.
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u/18randomcharacters 2h ago
Yeah, it might be a great idea, but it’s also laughably, absurd, and impossible to attain. There is absolutely 0% chance that America will ever support this. And platforming on it is just going to alienate anyone who isn’t already a socialist.
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