This only makes it worse. This year 51% of the population voted for Party B, so they have 51% of the legislature. They vote as a block, so they vote in anything supported by the majority of the coalition that Party B represents. So then you get bad laws that are only supported by 26% of people (51% of 51%). Next year Party A has 51% of the legislature, but not the Presidency, so they can't repeal it.
A possible solution to this would be to allow for the repeal of any law that wouldn't currently have what it takes to pass, i.e. anyone can resubmit any existing law as a new bill and if it fails to pass both houses and earn the President's signature, it effects repeal of the existing law.
And then of course there is the large chunk of people who find the views of both parties so uninspiring or outright disgusting to not want to vote at all.
Its really surprising when any popular legislation is passed in any form, even watered down, in this mess of a system. Obviously though that is by design.
It happens often enough when people are polled on the legislation itself, rather than party preferences, people overwhelmingly support positions which may even be antithetical to both sides of parliament. Climate change legislation has enjoyed overwhlming support in oz for years, even amongst a slim majority on the right.
People overwhelming support environmental protections. But our parliament this week, under cover of covid, pushed through a massive regression in environemntal protections without even letting their own party discuss the legislation, let alone the opposition or the media.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/wisconsin-e2-80-99s-...
> The maps have exceeded their designers high expectations all decade long. In 2018, for example, Wisconsin voters re-elected a Democratic U.S. senator, backed Evers for governor over two-term Republican incumbent Scott Walker, placed Democrats in every elected statewide office, and preferred Democratic assembly candidates by a margin of 190,000 votes. Republicans held the chamber, 64-35. They won 64 percent of the seats, with 46 percent of the votes.
It would be difficult to call Wisconsin a democracy with a straight face at this point.
I think you don't understand how things are working. Senators are elected by the people, at the seat level. You can see what's happening here in this post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/04/several-l...
> [in 2018] They [Democrats] won 53 percent of the vote and only 36 percent of the seats. However, that can be explained in part by the fact that Democrats had far more seats in which they weren’t running against a Republican opponent. Nearly half of the votes the Democrats earned were in districts where their candidates didn’t face significant opposition. In contested races, Republicans won more votes than Democrats.
If you get 90% of votes for one seat where there is virtually no opposition, that has no bearing to the other seat where you lost 48% to 52%.
That's actual democracy, and even direct democracy. This is also confirmed by the 17th Amendment:
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-17/
> The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years
We already know ways to prevent the majority from imposing tyranny on the minority, we just decided that more absolute power is convenient.
The majority is more afraid of what will happen if the government does not find the information to catch the person trying to hurt them, than they are about the government finding information about them and hurting them with it.
Remember it is majority rules. Not even 80/20 but 51/49. You only need 51 percent of people to have less to hide. And people in the majority are typically not the ones that have things to hide for legitimate reasons. It is the people in the minority that are innocent of any wrongdoing , but be undesirable for some reason, that have something to fear.