Experts Warn That America Is Rapidly Becoming A Country Of Minority Rule

Experts are starting to sound the alarm bells about the fact that a minority of people in this country are represented by a majority of members of the U.S. Senate. And since the Senate is where legislation goes to die these days, we are essentially becoming a country of minority rule. This is a dangerous moment for the country, but as long as the Senate exists in its current form, this problem is only going to continue to get worse. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Recently NPR hat on experts who predicted that if this trend that's happening right now in the United States continues in just a few short years, we are going to be a country that is 100% minority rule. And don't worry, conservatives, I'm not talking about the minorities that you don't like. I'm talking about a minority of US citizens having authority over the majority of US citizens. Here's what they mean. This is from Mara Liasson. Right now, the Senate is split evenly in half, but the 50 Democratic senators represent 41 and a half million more people than the 50 Republican senators. By 2040, if population trends continue, 70% of Americans will be represented by just 30 senators and 30% of Americans by 70 senators. That has a lot of implications like for the Senate filibuster, where a party that represents a shrinking minority of voters can block almost all major legislation. The dangers of minority rule are plenty.

But what's happening right now when we pretty much already have minority rule is that the Senate is where legislation goes to die and it's not going there to die because of the will of those constituents. We need to be perfectly clear about that. It's going there to die because we're so partisan that we can't put our blinders aside. We can't put tribalism aside to do what's right for the American public. That's the problem. Millions of Americans, millions and millions and millions of Americans, whether they're in red States or blue States are suffering right now due to inaction from the United States Senate. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, believe it or not, is actually going to help more red state voters and citizens, not just voters, than blue State citizens. Right. Red States tend to benefit the most from that.

If we were to forgive student loan debt, that benefits people across the spectrum. Medicare For All of course would benefit everyone. But we can't have any of these good things. We can't have any good ideas, infrastructure, investment as well, creating a green jobs program, that is tremendously going to help people in red States that traditionally rely on fossil fuel industry for their jobs. But we can't do that because we already have minority rule. And we have minority rule because of the partisan hacks that are packed into that US Senate. The only two options are abolish the filibuster now and forever, it is gone, or abolish the Senate. If we can't change the rules, get rid of the entire body. Guarantee every single state, you know, a certain number of representatives and then have several representatives at large to replace the senators. But they all come into one body. The bicameral legislature was a great invention at the time.

But this country's founders could not have foreseen one, the tribalism that has taken place in the United States. Two, the expansion of population that has happened here in the United States and three, the concentration of the populations here in the United States. And I don't mean to, you know, crap on a state like Wyoming, but Wyoming should not have as much power in the US Senate or in Congress as New York or as Texas or as Florida. Yet you could have a Senator from Wyoming that could single handedly destroy legislation to improve the lives of individuals down here in Florida.