The EU isn't undemocratic, but it feels undemocratic to many, and that's a legitimacy issue worth taking seriously
And as shown in the last two terms of Von der Leyen, saying no doesn't actually do anything, because the same candidate can be proposed again.
Over the past decade I went from a big fan to someone very troubled about the political goals of the elites.
And, having lived in Brussels, you can sorta see why they're disconnected from the “will of the people”…
Ironically, we managed to re-create a Forbidden City full of mandarins and eunuchs, or a new Versailles, only now they wear modern suits.
Scaling power institutions is always tricky, and this is the main risk.
Eventually it gets on your nerves how much worse the city has to be to cater to the Institutions.
There's something about non-taxed coddled elites eating oysters and drinking champagne at 9AM on a Sunday that makes you a bit of a cynic.
And then, of course, all your friends works for the research companies that get paid a fortune to provide advice to the Eurocrats. But well, your friend has a Bachelor's in Marketing and she's being considered an expert on Soil Research because… eh, the agency is getting paid.
The Bubble is there and you'll be exposed to it. It's not a good Bubble. It's mostly young MBAs and Political Science majors that think they know how to fix everything.
(And some very talented people, of course. It's not all bad.)
Elected officials, elected judges and binding referenda would make it democratic.
Did we not?
I voted for the EU parliament. I voted for my government, which forms the council and appoints the commission.
* the Council of composed of ministers and heads of government. Ministerial posts are distributed among the winning party members in pretty much every country, and only presidential systems have a direct election for their head of government. In constitutional monarchies, the head of government is commonly assigned to the largest party leader, but it's not a directly electable position.
A Californian did not vote for the Senator from North Carolina.
A Londoner did not vote for the MP from Edinburgh.
A Berliner did not vote for the Bavarian Bundesrat member.
The Londoner is completely out of luck if their seat is a safe seat but not their party.
Not that German politics isn't pretty hosed too.
A problem for the US is that /both/ chambers of parliament are skewed that way.
And, despite certain bills having to originate in the House, the Senate is more powerful since all Congressional powers either require both houses in concert or the Senate alone (except for electing the President when there is an electoral tie, which the House does but with a voting rule of one-vote-per-state-delegation which gives it the same undemocratic weighting as the Senate has normally.)
Come again? MT and RI have the same approximate population (1.1M) and the same number of representatives (2). I’m talking about the state level here.
> all Congressional powers either require both houses in concert
Right, they act as checks and balances upon one another. Equal-sized representation to give smaller states a way to avoid being steamrolled by the will of the largest states — why would states want to stay in a union where they have no hope of representation? Methinks if Alabama and Mississippi kept everything about themselves politically the same yet were both the size of California and New York you’d probably be of a different mind about the importance of the senate.