https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image...
I'm a brit, we're not doing much better than the US. But no one really takes the US seriously as a democracy.
Partly for the reason you yourself give: propoganda and fake news. Partly because the US system is just such a mess (the senate has so much power and seems designed to be antidemocratic for a start). Trump and Jan 6th are just the icing on the cake.
That is because it is.... and that is a GOOD thing
The Senate is designed to be the State's (i.e the state governments) representative in the federal government, We are a union of 50 independent states, people seem to forget that. it is the United *States* of America, The House of Representatives is the People i.e the citizens chamber, and the Senate is the States chamber of government
it was not until 1913 that Senators were elected by voters, before then State legislators appointed the Senators and IMO we should return to that model
Fyi, I'd say the senate is more like a house of Lords. Before it was required to be elected it was routinely bought by the richest interests in a state. It represented the interests of the Uber rich. Again, not a judgment just an observation...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402382.2016.11...
Same with Germany’s upper house, the Bundesrat, today.
At the very least, it's debatable whether a state legislature's (hypothesized) collective power to appoint U.S. senators would be an especially-salient consideration for voters in individual legislative races. Quaere whether any light might be shed by data available from before adoption of the 17th Amendment.
We haven't forgotten it because it's not the case: First, the Constitution's opening words are "We, the People of the United States," NOT "The States of the United States ...." Second, the issue was conclusively settled at Appomattox and with the ensuing enactments of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
> The Senate is designed to be the State's (i.e the state governments) representative in the federal government
In the modern era that might still be viable if the Senate's power were only to veto enactments by the House, perhaps by a supermajority vote — and with that veto power being waived after X days — instead of what it is now, i.e., a roadblock even for popular House bills. The old "cooling saucer" notion seems outdated.
That would not be proper English nor make any sense linguistically.
If you believe that the Founders thought the States were not independent, and sovereign in their own right then you clearly have not read the Federalist Papers. Take a close look at Federalist 17 as an example
If the States were not separate but equal, i.e the foundational principle of our style of governance, then why call the nation the United *States*, why not just call it America or some other name all together
No the founders clearly believed the States should not be servant to the Federal Government, nor should the Federal Government be servant to individual state governments.
>>Second, the issue was conclusively settled at Appomattox and with the ensuing enactments of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
I disagree that it was conclusively settled, nor do I agree that application of the federal constitution to the states by default makes the states Subservient vassals of the federal government
Further last I check the passage of an Amendment requires the ratification of said amendment by 3/4 of States thus proving they are in fact not vassals as if they were then their consent would not be needed.
>In the modern era that might still be viable if the Senate's power were only to veto enactments by the House, perhaps by a supermajority vote
Yea... no
That does not make any sense historically, legislatively or logically. Having a chamber that can only act in the negative would be a pointless chamber of government.
Bills should be assumed to be Bad and at every level require affirmation.
Your process of legislative review makes about as much sense as a criminal system on the principle of Guilty until Proven innocent.
Laws should be hard to pass, laws should be extremely hard to pass, and federal laws should be almost impossible to pass ensuring the federal government does very little and most governance is done at the local level where it should be done.
In general the government that governs the least, governs the best, and this is quadruple true for a Federal Government
If by that you mean, cover-to-cover since the Con Law course during the first semester of law school, then yeah, you're right.
> In general the government that governs the least, governs the best
That'd be true if men were angels. (And yeah, I do mean men, pretty much; we'd likely all be a lot better off if women ran things.)
The whole reason the Framers wrote the Constitution was that the Articles of Confederation were based on the "governs least" principle, and that didn't work out too well.