They left a nearly impossible way to amend the Constitution-so when it isn’t amended-for example, in the case of the ERA, which had overwhelming majority support, it could be blocked by essentialy, a third of the states- the former Confederacy, Mormon Utah, and by Illinois, where it was stopped by political gameplaying and the hostility of a minority of voters to the Constitutional acceptance of the realities of modern life- it simply means, in most cases, that a tiny minority of people said “no”.

It’s absurd to argue that the defeat of the ERA somehow means the majority of the country wants us to spend the rest of the eternity in 1793.

And it’s not “the country” opposing progressive changes, changes that would harm no one- it’s the Senate-a chamber where the Republican Party holds a majority in though, in every Senate election in recent memory it has lost solidly in the overall popular vote, acting mainly out of personal arrogance and the disproportionate blocking power the structure of that body gives them.

Why should the wishes of a right-wing minority concentrated largely in small states matter more than the wishes of everyone else?

And really, isn’t it time to admit that the notion that people who live in cities, people who aren’t male or straight, people who aren’t in the sort of living arrangements that only ever really existed in 1950s tv shows are LESS American than people like you, or, for that matter, that everything they want is somehow going to lead to you being persecuted?