Anti-democratic features of the US political system

Features of the United States political system that violate the one-person-one-vote principle:

• the Electoral College — worst voting-power disparity: 3.18 times — nationwide voting-power disparity: 1.08 times [2]
• the Senate — worst voting-power disparity: 68 times — nationwide voting-power disparity: 1.30 times [2]
  • these voting-power disparities are even worse for racial minorities (TODO: find data on this)
• the Senate filibuster — voting-power disparity: I can't find a calculation, but it is definitively worse than the underlying Senate voting-power disparity

Features that are less cut-and-dry, but nonetheless result in political decision-making being unrepresentative of the will of the people:

• gerrymandering
  • these sometimes target racial minorities
• voter suppression
  • these almost always target racial minorities
• influence of money on politics
  • This disproportionally impacts people of racial minorities.

Initial rationale

• the Electoral College — To preserve slavery.
• the Senate — IMHO, it was a weird quirk of sausage-making that resulted in the Connecticut Compromise winning out over the Virginia Plan.
  • However, the Constitution's Article V seems to go to great lengths to protect this, so apparently somebody thought it was important.
• the Senate filibuster — It wasn't intended to be put there by the founders, rather it was purely accidental.

The most charitable interpretation of arguments in favor of undemocratic representation

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
• (TODO: read this article and summarize its main points — "Global Minority Rule: Why American Anti-Majoritarianism is far from Exceptional")

Chances for reform

• the Senate — Not bloody likely.
  • But maybe it's not as hard as it seems? (this paywalled article is available via Incognito mode)
• the Senate filibuster — Not difficult: it was already done in 2013 (which eliminated the filibuster for non-SCOTUS nominations) and 2017 (which eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations).
• the Electoral College — We're currently 72% of the way there.
• gerrymandering — Not under this Supreme Court, which last weighed in on 2019.
• voter suppression — Congress needs to restore and update Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but given our schlerotic Senate, I'm not holding my breath. (SCOTUS struck down Section 4(b) of the VRA in 2013, but left Section 5 intact, theoretically allowing room for Congress to restore preclearance at some point by enacting a new formula) [2]
• money in politics — Not under this Supreme Court, which last weighed in on 2014.

My views

I am aware that some of the founding fathers supported various "counter-majoritarian" aspects of law. However, straying from one-person-one-vote means that you have chosen a dominant minority to rule over you. It matters less who you chose to be the dominant minority, what matters is that you have chosen some dominant minority to rule over you, and that's a real problem.

I agree with Winston Churchill who said "Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried". Democracy is definitely not perfect, but we haven't managed to find a proper benevolent dictator yet, so I don't know what other option we have.