Partly true.. only for Election of the President. The primary balance and check on the legislative body is gone under the 17th Amendment.
The day to day, rule if law is gone under the 17th Amendment with no checks and balances on the Federal bureaucracy by the State legislature and state governors office for 1/2 of the legislature of the federal government. It effectively killed a huge balance and truly made the state government subservient to the Fed government.
Yep
Like I said, at least we’re still not like France under the French Revolution, regardless of the Seventeeth Amendment. It would take a LOT more than just the Seventeenth Amendment before we even come close to September Massacres France, let alone Reign of Terror France, which is exactly what we would have to reach before we can truly qualify as a democracy. Even at the state level, we’re not close to that. Now, if we have mob riots every single day, people murdering each other for laughs, having mobs “clean out” prisons, and all of that shebang, not to mention executing people in public before a clamoring baying mob while interrupting a leader’s final speech forgiving the populace, also murdering various Catholics and other religious people in the name of atheism, then yes, we are officially a democracy.