{"id":4995,"date":"2026-07-21T09:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T09:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4995"},"modified":"2026-07-21T09:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T09:06:10","slug":"dsa-revolutionaries-aim-to-topple-the-senate-and-the-constitution-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4995","title":{"rendered":"DSA revolutionaries aim to topple the Senate \u2014 and the Constitution, too"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Political parties tend to harshly reject the idea that they are a threat to the constitutional order, but the Democratic Socialists of America are making it part of their brand. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Animal-style brawl breaks out at California In-N-Out<\/a><\/p>\n

The DSA has released a new program that, besides contemplating the advent of a classless society, calls for abolishing the US Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is literally a revolutionary program to topple the American system as we have known it since 1789.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the kind of thing you might expect after angry rebels mount the barricades in Washington, DC, and overthrow the government.<\/p>\n

It makes proposals to abolish the filibuster seem trifling in comparison, and even court-packing look relatively moderate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposal to kill off the world\u2019s greatest deliberative body has gotten the most attention.<\/p>\n

The DSA\u2019s co-chair, Gustavo Gordillo, went on Fox News to explain that the Senate is \u201cundemocratic,\u201d while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has said that she opposes the filibuster and elements of the Senate that \u201cwere founded on Jim Crow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contra Gordillo, the Senate is a democratic institution; no one wins a Senate seat without getting more votes than his or her opponent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet, part of its role in our system is to serve as a check on popular passions.<\/p>\n

At the institution\u2019s inception, state legislatures appointed senators.<\/p>\n

Those days are long gone (the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, requires direct election), but six-year terms and staggered elections give the Senate more insulation from the transient currents of public sentiment than the House of Representatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, there are the Senate rules that put an emphasis on consensus and delay.<\/p>\n

AOC sounded confused when she cited Senate practices created under Jim Crow, the system of formalized racial discrimination that arose about 100 years after the creation of the Senate.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that the filibuster was used as a tool to attempt to block landmark civil-rights legislation, without ultimate success.<\/p>\n

But the filibuster is an instrument of every minority party in the Senate trying to block the agenda of a president of the opposing party, very much including the Senate Democrats arrayed against President Donald Trump today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Crime is Mamdani\u2019s kryptonite \u2014 so watch out for his sneaky claims<\/a><\/p>\n

The Senate has another function: giving small states equal representation with large states in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

This is the source of the charge that it\u2019s undemocratic: Why should Wyoming, population roughly 600,000, have as many senators as California, population nearly 40 million?<\/p>\n

This is meant, though, to keep large states from having overwhelming influence on the nation\u2019s governance, and to give easy-to-ignore places a say in the nation\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n

For proportional representation, there\u2019s the House; California has 52 members of Congress, whereas Wyoming has only one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All this said, regardless of the merits, the Constitution deems the provision of equal senators for the states un-amendable: \u201cNo State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

This suggests that the dissolution of the constitutional system couldn\u2019t be achieved by constitutional means, since the Founders didn\u2019t supply a readily available self-destruct button for their brilliant handiwork.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not that the DSA cares.<\/p>\n

What they are seeking would, in some ways, be a return to the Articles of Confederation, under which we had a unicameral legislature and neither a presidency nor federal courts.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

But this made for a very weak central government, and the DSA wants an overweening Washington shorn of the inherent checks on the popular will that come with a multi-layered federal system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In short, it hopes for what Lord Hailsham, in his criticism of the British parliamentary system, famously called an \u201celective dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a speech last week in which he inveighed against left-wing extremists who seek to destroy rather than build, targeting \u201cthe physical embodied symbols of power and invention and achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n

He might have added, with a nod to the DSA, the US constitutional order. The socialists have met the enemy \u2014 and it is our own longstanding, highly successful governing institutions.<\/p>\n

Read more Drivers keep using buckling storm-damaged bridge \u2014 because it\u2019s faster than detour<\/a><\/p>\n

X: @RichLowry<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is literally a revolutionary program to destroy the American system as we have known it since 1789 \u2014 the kind of thing you’d expect after angry rebels mount the barricades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-rich-lowry"],"yoast_head":"\nDSA revolutionaries aim to topple the Senate \u2014 and the Constitution, too - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4995\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DSA revolutionaries aim to topple the Senate \u2014 and the Constitution, too - 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