You're not dumb, merely uninformed about the Founders' intent in the way they divided powers. Back in their day, the states were thought of pretty much as sovereign nations. They chose to create a federation primarily to provide for the common defense and make interstate commerce more uniform. Kind of like the free trade agreement of their day.
When the delegates met in Philadelphia for what became the first Constitutional Convention, their original goal was merely to find a way to strengthen the Articles of Confederation, which had proven to be unworkable. Instead, they completely junked the Articles and wrote the Constitution. In creating a centralized federal government, they tried to balance three interests: those of the individual sovereign states, those of the people, and those of the new federalized nation.
They used two methods to protect the states. The first was the electoral college, which evened the power among large and small states in electing the national president. The second was to have the state governments, via their legislatures, choose their agents to represent them at the federal level. Those agents were U.S. senators, whose main role was to protect the interests of their sovereign states.
With senators now being elected directly by the people within a state, senators are nothing more than glorified U.S. House representatives (who are supposed to be the people's agents in Congress). Senators no longer are agents for the state governments in Washington.
You see, House members only have to campaign in their home districts, so theoretically they are closer to the people they represent. Senators used to have a similar close relationship with the people they represented -- the state governments. Now senators just campaign state-wide and are not close to anyone other than whoever contributes the most to their campaigns. They have no true constituency other than the general electorate of their states. They are not agents for their state governments at the federal level. In fact, the states have no voice in Washington. They have zero representation at the federal level.
The Founders gave us a Constitutional Republic. The 17th Amendment basically killed the Republic and gave us a direct democracy.
Thank you. Excellent thumbnail history review. I learned all that 50+ years ago but the following years have been so filled with misinformation some of it got lost along the way.