“I think that having Senators popularly elected instead of being appointed by the state legislatures was a bigger problem.”
I completely disagree. You think for a microsecond that the California or New York senators would be any different if the state legislature elected them?
Actually the worst amendment BY FAR was the 16th - the one that instituted the income tax. That more than any other has caused the federal government to become a bloated, centralized, despotic cesspool. Imagine how much smaller and how much less power the federal government would have without their ability to put a gun on your head and collect trillions.
The 19th, giving women the right to vote is definitely second on my list. Women have a lot of wonderful qualities, being leaders or selecting leaders in general are not among them. Their decisions are too emotionally based.
Men and women are both to blame.
You can make an argument that women are more susceptible and afflicted with the current brand of progressive socialistic/communistic insanity that is infecting the nation, but they are not the only reason - men are getting pretty stupid too.
In fact, historically, the !7th and 19th Amendments were reforms that came about because men, who at that time were the only ones who could legally vote, were screwing things up so badly that women demanded a say in how things were run..
The biggest thing that has changed with women voting is how politicians have changed their strategies to fool and control women voters once they had the vote. The same can be said for the Black vote. .
So now women, who before were the proponents of sobriety, decency and moderation in society, are now as degenerate/reprobate and are behaving as badly, if not worse, than the men did back in the bad old days.
So the 19th Amendment was a response to the excesses of male only voting and it actually was beneficial initially.
The 17th Amendment was in response to blatant corruption in the selection of Senators by the men running the state legislatures at the time.