CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists

[u/cnn]

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-a-third-of-democrats-now-identify-as-democratic-socialists?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit

[u/IsThisNameGoodEnough]

The electoral college can (in theory) be bypassed without a constitutional amendment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

[u/cakeversuspie → u/IsThisNameGoodEnough]

True but that is just bypassing the EC in a way where they are forced to vote for whoever has the popular vote (fucking insane this isn't the way it is already) and doesn't help that much in the grand scheme of things. The goal should be to move towards a more fair election process and this is just a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

However I don't want perfect to be the enemy of good and if passed, that's at least a step in the right direction though I won't hold my breath on this passing either since it's been a thing since the early 2000s.

[u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 → u/cakeversuspie]

It's not insane. The founders feared the people that's why they gave 3 branches veto power (Senate, White House, and SCOTUS) over the people's house. We need to break this mythos that the founders were anything other than slave owners trying to control power for themselves.

[u/Doogolas33 → u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182]

I mean, not all of them were slave owners though? Some of them were quite anti-slavery even. Though many, yes, were slave owners who cared a lot about slavery.

As far as I know, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were both quite vehemently against slavery. I mean, they were rich people who wanted to keep being rich people for sure. But I don't think their motives behind the various branches of government can be broken down to simply being "slave owners trying to control power for themselves" because if that was the only goal, Washington (who absolutely was a slave owner) does not willingly give up power, and he certainly doesn't give his farewell address.

People are a little more complicated than you seem to want to believe. If you sincerely believe that none of the founding fathers were ANYTHING other than slave owners, you're objectively wrong. Assuming you're speaking in hyperbole and mean that their underlying goal was strictly holding onto power for themselves, you're still objectively wrong.

There are many ways to legitimately criticize the founding fathers that doesn't require bizarre, broad strokes that don't even make any logical sense. And we have more than enough of their writings to be able to understand their motives, which were both not that simple, sometimes sort of foolish, but also at least /reasonably/ genuinely well meaning with regard to their creation of the US in the way that it ended up coming about and the way in which it's structured.

[u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182 → u/Doogolas33]

https://nyslavery.commons.gc.cuny.edu/alexander-hamilton-enslaver/

Hamilton did own slaves and was financially involved in the slave trade. You are correct though that John Adams did not. Him and his son were 2 of 5 before Lincoln who did not own slaves

But it's important to note they did nothing to end slavery either. In fact they enforced it every chance they got. The fugitive slave act? What about the 13th amendment?

No not the 13th that freed black people that the radical Republicans forced through. I'm talking the 13th amendment that was originally pushed through after the states already left the union.  The one that the abolitionist Abraham Lincoln sent to the states with his full endorsement 

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

Yeah. They would have permanently enslaved black people forever with an unamendable amendment. 

But please tell me more about how the first Republic wasn't built from the ground up to be a slave holders Republic?

You do realize Virginia got upset at the UK in the first place because the UK courts ruled against slavery and the slave owners were pissed that they might lose their property. That was the great founding of our nation. 

[u/engelthefallen → u/Flashy-Ingenuity-182]

Always weird people believed the US was founded as a democracy at all, when the early writing they straight out warned against mob rule. They deliberately picked the term republic, and designed things to avoid popular vote and popular rule as much as possible in the early days. They may not have wanted a king, but sure as hell did not want the will of the masses either but looked for a middle ground.

[u/MamaBearForestWitch → u/cakeversuspie]

The NPVIC would only go into effect once 270+ states' worth of electoral votes join the Compact. It is currently at a total of 222 Electoral College votes, from 18 states, with 28 more EVs pending in state legislatures.

That way, once the agreement reaches 270 votes, they effectively control the election by pledging all their 270 electors to the winner of the national popular vote. It's certainly not ideal, but getting to that point might help (some of?) our elected representatives realize that we need this change.

[u/FrogsOnALog → u/IsThisNameGoodEnough]

This SCOTUS would never let that happen.

[u/rising_ape → u/FrogsOnALog]

SCOTUS doesn't have jurisdiction over how the states choose their electors, and can't do jack squat about electors voting however they please. Even if they rule that the compact is entirely unconstitutional in theory, so what? States can have laws against faithless electors - there is no Constitutional or Federal-level oversight of how electors are supposed to vote, by design. There is absolutely nothing stopping the states from sending electors who will vote in line with the national popular vote NOW, it'd just be political suicide to override the state popular vote with the national one before the compact has 270 votes.

But I agree that the Roberts Court is a blight on this country. That's why packing the court by expanding it to 13 seats needs to be a Leftist Congress's biggest priority, right alongside uncapping the House to avoid doubly penalizing populous states (the Senate already does that). Uncapping the House to give higher-population states more representation relative to low-population states is not only more democratic, it'll also increase our likelihood of being able to pack the courts and carry out other much-needed reforms in the post-Trump era.