politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I think the absolute failure of the ERA has proven unequivocally that ratifying amendments to the Constitution are no longer possible in an age where mass media has broad and instant reach.
There will always be someone powerful who opposes any amendment to the Constitution. And they will always make themselves heard loudly around the world, thereby making a consensus completely impossible.
I don't see why not. Older amendments have gone unratified before. The longest spell between ratifications so far has been 61 years, and our last ratification was on 1992, so resuming now wouldn't break any records.
While ERA would have been a good one, we also have an older unratified amendment for regulating child labor. The only reason ERA can't be ratified is that congress started setting ratification deadlines, but that's never been necessary, and older proposals that don't have them can still be ratified.
I think part of the reluctance is that people unaware that constitutional originalism is a fairly new legal theory (first proposed in the 1970s) don't regard the constitution as a living document when it has been for most of history. They've come to see the US constitution as entirely up to the Supreme Court & forgotten that the ultimate control is the people & their power to amend it.
It's not about the deadlines or the age of the amendments that have been proposed. The problem is that in our current media setup all it takes is one rich asshole who doesn't like an amendment to literally spam the entire world with propaganda against said amendment. And because the bar for ratification is so high it ends up being impossible.
I live in illinois. We've got a very liberal establishment here. But when we wanted to change our constitution to allow for a progressive income tax. One billionaire funneled millions of dollars into an ad campaign to shitcan the entire idea. And it worked.
That isn't new, and in the olden times, they thought their media of the time was also a threat to democracy. They had their tycoons then, too. As seen with political races like Mamdani's, wealth doesn't ultimately determine outcomes: the people still matter & have a mind of their own.
The people in Illinois were probably too apathetic or uninformed: laws don't sell themselves & activists need to advocate.