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Democracy making and drifting
Aug. 27th, 2026 05:32 amCBC Ideas currently has some very interesting series on democracy. A recent episode was about women suffrage movement in US and particularly about the life and erasure of Matilda Joslyn Gage and today’s episode was about BR Ambedkar, an untouchable champion in India that had a complex relationship with Gandhi and who converted to Buddhism towards the end of his life. The common thread in both of these movements was of course religion and its deleterious effects on people rights.
These episodes also got me thinking about constitutional drift and I was reminded also of constitutional fetishism (which my brother alluded to a while back when we were discussing the US constitution and the long term effects of the Marbury decision power grab). I wrote before that a new constitutional convention is absolutely needed in the US to undo some of the drift (and regular future ones are needed as well).
Somewhat related, it turns out that the minimum of 3/4 of the states ratifying a US constitutional amendment can amount to as little as 13 states of less than 14 million population can block it (or about 4% of total US population) and that the Senate filibuster can be maintained by 42 Senators from 21 states with a total population of 37 million (or 11% of total US population or less than California’s population).
I won’t even get into how often SCOTUS momentous and long-lasting decisions have a margin of one vote from an ideologically appointed justice by one (usually white old) man and rubber stamped by a few other old white multimillionaire men.
These episodes also got me thinking about constitutional drift and I was reminded also of constitutional fetishism (which my brother alluded to a while back when we were discussing the US constitution and the long term effects of the Marbury decision power grab). I wrote before that a new constitutional convention is absolutely needed in the US to undo some of the drift (and regular future ones are needed as well).
Somewhat related, it turns out that the minimum of 3/4 of the states ratifying a US constitutional amendment can amount to as little as 13 states of less than 14 million population can block it (or about 4% of total US population) and that the Senate filibuster can be maintained by 42 Senators from 21 states with a total population of 37 million (or 11% of total US population or less than California’s population).
I won’t even get into how often SCOTUS momentous and long-lasting decisions have a margin of one vote from an ideologically appointed justice by one (usually white old) man and rubber stamped by a few other old white multimillionaire men.
