Thread by @kegill

If you skipped it last week, I urge you to read the @FT analysis, "Will American tear itself apart?"

This point is not made NEARLY often enough: "conservative" GOP women who advocate for "traditional" family hierarchy except in their own homes. #AmyComeyBarrett #rbglegacy

"What then can be done to avert a US constitutional meltdown? The distressing answer is very little... the last memorable [amendment] was passed in 1971, when America’s 26th amendment reduced the voting age to 18."
@EdwardGLuce @FT

ft.com/content/b159bc…

"The last serious [amendment] was the 25th amendment in 1965, which enabled a US president to be removed because of incapacity." @EdwardGLuce

Yet in 2020, GOP leadership has refused to consider it despite the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Power trumps country.

THIS IS EVIL:
"Should Barrett have donned her robes, that would mean a third of the court—including John Roberts, the chief justice, and Brett Kavanaugh, who joined in 2018—had worked as legal aides on Bush’s 2000 campaign."

The one where the SCOTUS gave him the presidency. @FT

“Change in America has usually come from breaking the constitution rather than adhering to it — up to and including war. Not many constitutional scholars talk about that.” Sanford Levinson, UT law school @FT

"Originalism is a license to be creative." Eric Posner @FT

A pox on #AmyConeyBarrett's house but especially on #MitchMcConnellTheTraitor

Yes, Jefferson said this: each generation should update the constitution.
newrepublic.com/article/63773/…

The combination of gerrymandering and failure to expand the House to match the growth in US population means that we are living with the tyranny of the MINORITY not tyranny of the majority.

That's why GOP candidates cannot win the presidency with a majority of the votes.

In 2016, 17% of the US population could select the majority of the US Senate.

In 2013, the @nytimes noted: six senators from CA, TX, and NY represented the same number of people as 62 senators from the smallest 31 states.

nytimes.com/2016/11/21/ups…

The 70-30 Senate ratio (70% of seats held by 30% of the population) has been relatively constant through history.

What changed in the 20th century was the House. The 1929 law that authorized the 1930 census also capped the size of the House at 435.

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018…

And we are an outlier among our peers, per @pewresearch

The House needs expanding. If the population of WY was the base figure, there would be 545 - 560 representatives after the 2020 census.

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018…

Expanding the House won't help the Senate, but it sure as hell would help the Electoral College.

Originally designed to give power to slave states, today's EC cements power in minority, rural states.

We are divided as seriously as in 1860. Can we survive without conflict?