Abolish the Senate???

@MethDozer Yeah well if the days were granted there would be no strike, no?

@MethDozer Yep yep

@Elessar It's a bit more complicated than that, read through the reply chain and you'll see.

Basically Biden and the Senate went and appeased the most number of unions instead of the most number of workers. But it is still up in the air if there will be a strike. The kicker is they could have hust giving them the full demands and forced the employers to accept it.

@dancingtongue Exactly. The Senate was always intended to be the branch of congress to represent money and aristocracy. It is just our version if the House of Lords as you stated.

@MethDozer Fix it rather than abolish it. A more stable body with longer 6-year terms to balance the 2-year mobocracy in the House -- particularly in these days of perennial campaigning -- has a useful purpose. Even the existing filibuster rule was useful when it was used judiciously for a purpose rather than to just obstruct. How do you fix it? Well, all comes back to electing statesmen rather than partisan robots bought by lobbyists, which leads us back to campaign finance reform, which leads us back to a new SCOTUS.

@dancingtongue But it is inherently undemocratic and historically been the chamber of congress to supress the will of the of people in favor of the will of the rich and powerful minority. The fact it lends equal representation to states reguardless of its population size while also being th much more powerful branch of congress means it undermines democracy.

@MethDozer I would agree that when Senators were selected by State Legislators rather than elected, it wasn't democratic. I -- like a lot of people -- though the "one person, one vote" movement that made Senators an elected position would help get rid of it being a club for the rich and powerful, but they just started buying the elections and SCOTUS declared them "individuals" with free speech rights. Free speech rights with a lot of money to spend buying that free speech. The equal representation to states regardless of population I believe would serve a useful purpose if you fixed campaign financing and the filibuster rules. And I say that as a resident of the most populous state. As for the Senate being the most powerful branch, that depends upon one's view: they do have advise & consent powers on Presidential appointees including judges and sit in judgment on those impeached; but the House controls the purse strings and impeachment proceedings.

@luckranger71 The filibuster has some merit albeit it can be a problem at times. I think it's more systemic than just the filibuster. It's just the actual institution that is the issue IMHO.

@helenS The American Senate and Roman Senate have very little in common in reality beyond being a group of representatives. It's just what we decided to call it in respect to us being a republic loosely based on Roman governance. But it was never meant to be an exact copy or structured the same way.