American government has become increasingly counter-majoritarian.

The Republican Party is on track by the end of 2020 to pick 67 percent of the life-tenured justices but only win the popular vote in 12 percent of the last eight presidential elections. https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2020/09/23/history-offers-guide-for-dealing-with-a-regressive-packed-court/">https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2020/09/2...
Further, 18 percent of the population picks a majority of the Senate that will confirm Amy Coney Barrett. Over four million Americans in DC and the US territories have no say over the Senate (and by extension, the Court) at all. Read @jbouie for more. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/opinion/sunday/senate-democrats-trump.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/1...
The Electoral College – whereby states matter more than citizens – gives small states outsize influence and serves to suppress voter participation in states that are reliably blue or red. No other advanced democracy has such an institution.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00140841">https://link.springer.com/article/1...
The lower courts are just as tilted. As @scotusreporter and @seungminkim note, "There are no vacancies on the circuit court level, where approximately 30 percent of those on the bench have been nominated by Trump – who lost the popular vote." https://twitter.com/scotusreporter/status/1320726653375516673">https://twitter.com/scotusrep...
And as @EJDionne @TakeBacktheCt have flagged, this right-wing dominance influences how the courts at various levels vote on democracy itself, with GOP judges voting to impede ballot access at two times the rate of Democratic appointees. https://twitter.com/EJDionne/status/1320698762189328387">https://twitter.com/EJDionne/...
These counter-majoritarian features have led political scientists @levitsky2 and @dziblatt, who literally wrote the book on “How Democracies Die”, to warn that “In our political system, however, the majority does not govern. “ https://twitter.com/dziblatt/status/1319807479132413952">https://twitter.com/dziblatt/...
The crisis of democracy on its own would be bad enough. But it’s made worse by and makes worse the other challenges we face: COVID, inequality, the climate crisis, and systemic racism.
A response to COVID at scale will require executive branch agencies to move quickly on vaccines, commandeering supply chains, etc. Yet right-wing justices embrace judicial theories that make it harder for Congress to delegate authority for them to do so. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/21/conservative-supreme-court-judges-may-undermine-trump-get-their-way/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...
Ditto the economic recovery that is worsening inequality. Justices during the Lochner era (the so-called “originalists” of their day) blocked much of the early New Deal’s response to the Great Depression. Barrett could help do so again, per @imillhiser https://www.vox.com/21497317/originalism-amy-coney-barrett-constitution-supreme-court">https://www.vox.com/21497317/...
This judicial philosophy will also make it very difficult to address the climate crisis, as @JodyFreemanHLS points out here https://twitter.com/JodyFreemanHLS/status/1318990863050043393">https://twitter.com/JodyFreem...
Climate-induced changes in state population patterns will lead to worsening inequalities in the Senate, going from a 67-to-1 discrepancy between the power of the least to the most populous state, to 154-to-1 by the end of the century.
https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/fixing-the-senate-equitable-full-representation-21st-century/">https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publicati...
These judicial and Senate veto points will in turn empower economic veto points represented by carbon-intensive industries, as @JeffDColgan @greenprofgreen @thomanhale project out here
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3634572">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pape...
Fourth, as @ElieNYC reminds us, the right-wing elements on the Court have been busy shredding the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, all which entrench systemic racism and White minority rule as the country become majority people of color. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/scotus-comcast-discrimination/">https://www.thenation.com/article/s...
Luckily, there are steps we can take to begin the process of building democracy back better, and in the process improve our ability to address existential threats.
We can appoint labor lawyers instead of corporate lawyers to these new seats, as @WeDemandJustice call for here: https://demandjustice.org/supreme-court-shortlist/">https://demandjustice.org/supreme-c...
We can strip the Court of jurisdiction to hear cases over matters affecting the key existential crises, as @samuelmoyn and @rddoerfler call for here.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3665032">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pape...
And while we’re at it, we can improve the way we evaluate policies so that decarbonization and union strengthening are facilitated rather than hindered, as @ddayen @rdnayak @kalhartp @sharblock @tphillips and I call for here https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/future-of-the-regulatory-state/">https://prospect.org/day-one-a...
That’s the low-hanging fruit of stuff that’s constitutional. But a more comprehensive approach would make it easier to modernize the Constitution itself

@Camila_Vergara has inspiring ideas for doing so in her new book Systemic Corruption. Highly recommend https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691207537/systemic-corruption">https://press.princeton.edu/books/har...
And any solution to our domestic democracy will need a new approach to how we manage globalization, as @trevorcsutton @AndyGreenSF of @amprog argue here https://twitter.com/DemJournal/status/1318936841731571712">https://twitter.com/DemJourna...
If this seems like a big lift, that’s because it is.
And fixing US democracy so we can regulate better can help address the global climate crisis.
Finally, these structural fixes will (eventually) lower the winner-take-all arms race nature of US elections and force both sides to compete for working people& #39;s votes.
In the short run, per @Jacob_S_Hacker and Paul Pierson, the side with the unpopular ideas will continue to escalate. It can& #39;t be a one-sided fight, especially with principled fixes on hand that will improve lives. END
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631496844">https://wwnorton.com/books/978...
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