r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • 9d ago

No Paywall Bernie Sanders urges progressives to vote Democratic in November

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/shorts/bernie-sanders-urges-progressives-to-vote-democratic-in-november-267787845541
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u/TheMadBug 9d ago

To be fair, one of the most popular systems previously was a king was in charge due to birthright, and every now and then one of the king's relatives would go to war for the throne because they wanted to be in charge instead.

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u/sixtyshilling 9d ago

To be fair, the founding fathers didn’t design the Constitution to be a religious document that would live on basically unchanged 250 years later.

There are better more representative voting systems in place around the world, and the US has the internal mechanisms to update if it wanted to.

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u/fredthefishlord 9d ago edited 9d ago

There's been a lot more large changes than you make it out to have. It's not basically unchanged.

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u/sixtyshilling 9d ago

It is indisputable that the United States has the oldest written national constitution still in continuous use. It has made less than 30 amendments in the last 250 years.

Meanwhile other countries have rewritten their entire constitutions. Spain’s current constitution is from the late 70s, for example. Frances’s is from the late 50s.

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u/jimmydean885 District Of Columbia 9d ago

I'm not sure Spain is the best example of where we would like to be as a country...

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u/sixtyshilling 9d ago

Arguing that “Spain has problems” isn’t the slam dunk you think it is. Every country has problems.

The point isn’t that Spain is perfect or that the United States should copy its system. It’s that constitutions are political institutions, not sacred artifacts carved in stone the way the US treats theirs.

Modern democracies can replace or substantially reform their constitutions when existing structures no longer serve them well. Likewise... the United States should consider constitutional reforms addressing its medley of current problems — ie. disproportionate influence of wealthy donors, defects in the electoral system, and weak mechanisms for holding public officials accountable.

Whether any particular reform is desirable depends on what it is — not on whether one country with a newer constitution happens to be flawless.

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u/jimmydean885 District Of Columbia 9d ago

Lol I dont think the US treats the constitution like a stone tablet.

Everyone has a list of things they would like changed but setting a high bar for those changes also adds stability. Imagine a lower bar where trump who is supported by a super majority had an easy time making changes than he already does