rayjay
Let's try again: the US is a Constitutional Democracy, or even more accurately, a Constitutional Republic. You seem to think that the legislature could ban the bill of rights because the majority says so. We have a Constitution, and we have laws on how to change that Constitution if people don't like them. It's imperfect. That's true of all Constitutions, including Canada's.
I didn't say any of this...
I said that your current Constitution was designed, and continues to work, to impede the will of the majority of people.
The Bill of rights is about the protection of individual rights. It works pretty well, and seems to be a virtuous circle that, over time, has been expanding to more persons and has been increasingly well enforced by the courts. Its why it serves and has served as a model for many other nations when they seek to write their own.
The
rest of the Constitution is about how laws and regulations are generated and enforced. And its that part of the Constitution that makes it hard for change to occur. Since the incumbents have always been privileged minorities, the use the constitutional mechanisms that provide them with out sized political power (i.e. the senate, the electoral college) to protect their privileges and slow change the majority wants. Its just reality RayJay.
Some of what the Democrats are promoting right now
has majority support. Some doesn't.
To an extent, how popular an idea is, doesn't translate into politically possible because the majority that support the idea aren't represented in government to the extent they would in a more democratic institution.
That means, with the current representation, the idea has to have overwhelming popular support. Or if it does sneak through it can gain popular support quickly till it becomes insurmountable to change. (Gay marriage is one example of that, where change became widely accepted despite gaining approval as a slim majority).
Here's a list of topics that are currently polling as popular:
- action on climate change
- action of enhanced gun regulation.
-less expensive secondary education.
-improved primary education
-improved immigration laws, and more efficient and fairer enforcement
- improved health insurance and lower heath costs (The ACA has 60+ approval. and ..)
Where democrats can craft attractive policy for these issues, they should be able to use them to gain election at majority level, because there is appetite for change.
https://www.businessinsider.com/poll-me ... ort-2018-3There are vested interest groups who don't want that change to happen. (NRA, Health insurance companies, big pharma, oil companies...)
The 2020 election will represent an opportunity for overwhelming support to be represented in the resulting Congress ... But if the representation in Congress falls a little short, then you can be sure those vested interests will use the levers to maintain the status quo to their benefit.
In a governance system where the majority will was better represented ... those changes would happen and would have happened some time ago.
In a system designed to protect privileged minorities ... change is difficult.