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In all fairness, while he is correct about the 17th Amendment being unwarranted populism, he misses the point about its ill effects. It is not “excessive populism”.

As one of the system of checks and balances that the founding fathers created, the idea was that the House of Representatives would be the most democratic and responsible to the people, hence its nickname of “The People’s House”.

The US Senate was indeed supposed to represent the interests of the individual States. And importantly, the President was, and still is, selected *not* by popular vote, but by the election of the electoral college electors, something that has mattered very much a few times in our history.

(And finally, a fourth member of the balance was that the President should nominate the justices of the Supreme Court, who the senate (and thus the States) would confirm, or not.)

But that is “just” representation, excepting the SCOTUS.

What *isn’t* obvious, is the hidden balance that exists with the sole purpose of *protecting the people* from government.

The founding fathers didn’t come up with this. It only happened because of the Civil War. Specifically the 14th Amendment, which was very clear and precise with what is called the “equal protection” clause:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. “

Basically, the 14th Amendment allows the federal government to *protect* the people from an abusive State government.

Just recently, in his concurring opinion in McDonald v. Chicago, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an extended, and brilliant, resurrection of the equal protection clause, that is, and should be published in legal textbooks throughout the land.

But the 14th Amendment is only half the story. Until the passage of the 17th Amendment, the Direct Election of Senators, US senators were a powerful tool in just the *opposite* direction.

—That is, they were the means by which the individual States protected the people from an abusive federal government.—

But with the 17th Amendment, senators no longer needed to act on behalf of their States, but could just do a populist “tap dance” every six years to get reelected. Once elected, they could ignore both their States and the people of their State.

And this means that, since 1913 and the passage of the 17th Amendment, the federal government has been able to do anything it wants to us, the people. To directly involve itself in our lives, and to try and control us, oppress us, and manipulate us.

And the States cannot stand in their way.

And this is far, far worse than “excessive populism”.

And why RINOs are such a pain in the ass.