Comment by wrycoder

Each seat in the Senate is directly democratic, but the Senate as a whole is not.

The reason is that people in states with low populations have far more per-capita representation in the Senate than people in populous states.

The Senate is so powerful that this means that most federal decisions are determined by the minority of the country.

  > It was not intended that the federal government run everything - it was concerned primarily with defense and relations with other countries. Originally.

what happened that necessitated a deviation from that?

its the states that are bad in that.

splitting out all the related citites into their own states would make a more appropriate federation

Let me quote something the Founders wrote when they argued for replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution:

"The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration.

It may be objected to this, that not seven but nine States, or two thirds of the whole number, must consent to the most important resolutions; and it may be thence inferred that nine States would always comprehend a majority of the Union. But this does not obviate the impropriety of an equal vote between States of the most unequal dimensions and populousness; nor is the inference accurate in point of fact; for we can enumerate nine States which contain less than a majority of the people; and it is constitutionally possible that these nine may give the vote. Besides, there are matters of considerable moment determinable by a bare majority; and there are others, concerning which doubts have been entertained, which, if interpreted in favor of the sufficiency of a vote of seven States, would extend its operation to interests of the first magnitude. In addition to this, it is to be observed that there is a probability of an increase in the number of States, and no provision for a proportional augmentation of the ratio of votes.

But this is not all: what at first sight may seem a remedy, is, in reality, a poison. To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy."

(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed22.asp)

Sounds familiar?

Thing is, the Articles of Confederation was the only thing they could agree upon at the time, so it was better than nothing. And the Constitution, similarly, was the only thing they could agree upon at that time. Both were compromises guided by the unique circumstances of the time. When those circumstances change significantly, the compromise may no longer make sense for all the parties involved. I don't think that either EC or the Senate make sense for many states at this point; they merely tolerate them, but the more the minority uses those mechanisms to push its politics on the majority, the less that tolerance is going to be.

Keep doing this, and you'll find out that Constitution that not enough people believe in is, indeed, just a piece of paper.

"Originally" doesn't matter anymore. The Founders wanted us to write a new constitution before 1820. They also didn't let women, blacks, and non-landlords vote.

Do you know where the States come from? They aren't local cultures. They are a bunch of territory ruled by some aristocratic British dude.

Most of the states that exist are due to undemocratic compromises with monarchs and slaveholders.

Draw state boundaries around communities that want to be cohesive, and stop designing a nation around 18th Century concerns, and we can talk.