As you know, the U.S. Senate only needs 41 senators to successfully bar an end to debate on any bill before the body.
Let's consider a "back of the napkin," worst case scenario application of this logic.
41 senators = 41 U.S. Senate elections. If we consider only the 21 smallest states that elected them, they have a combined population of only 34.1 million people [1]. 34.1 million people to ruin healthcare, the economy, and anything else in this supposed democracy.
But it gets worse.
Of this group, let's say that only about 230/305 = 75% of people are actually of voting age [2]. In the last presidential election, 131/230 = 56% of adults were actually registered and came out to vote [3]. And of course a senator only needs 51% of the vote to win. This comes out to:
34.1 million people x 0.75% voting age x 0.56% voting x 51% winning share = 7.3 million people
A whopping 7.3 million people, in the worst case, can deny 296 million people access to their government. This is a democracy?
(Join me after the jump for discussion and sources.)
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