MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell condemns the Senate as a 'permanently anti-democratic institution'

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MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell argues that the Senate is a 'permanently, anti-democratic institution'

MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell argues that the Senate is a 'permanently, anti-democratic institution'

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell decried the upper chamber of Congress as "anti-democratic" during his appearance Thursday on "The ReidOut."

Host Joy Reid led to the topic of the Senate by discussing whether the United States is "governable" as a country based on "a system designed by European men who certainly never envisioned racial and gender equality or the kind of diversity that we have today or that anyone not like them would share power in this country."

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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. (Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images) ( (Sergio Flores/Getty Images))

O’Donnell considered it a "reasonable" question as Reid claimed the U.S. government refuses to act on majority views.

"We’re an anti-majoritarian government. It’s designed to be anti-majoritarian on purpose," Reid said. "The only agreements that had to be made were between this old white guy and that old white guy."

"Case closed, the Senate is a disaster," O’Donnell said.

"It was a structural disaster. It was a disaster at birth, but it got away with it for a very long time, this notion of two per state," he said. "The Founders never dreamed there was going to be a place with this name California with all of these Spanish place names and was going to have a population that approached the size of France. They didn’t think they were going to have states like that."

Capitol Building DC and constitution overlay (istock)

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Reid used West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin as an example for repeatedly defying President Biden’s agenda and denying a Senate majority for Democrats. 

O’Donnell criticized the Senate for putting states such as California and New York on the same level as North and South Dakota.

"And so it’s a fundamentally and relentlessly and permanently anti-democratic institution," O’Donnell said. "And more people are going to always vote for Democratic senators in the United States Senate even when they end up with less Democratic senators in the Senate because the Dakotas get four senators. There’s populations the size of Staten Island that get two senators."

The chamber of the House of Representatives. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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On April 20, during MSNBC’s "The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell," O’Donnell said the statement, "A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy democracy" might "be a fact." The panel on his show agreed that journalists "can’t be neutral" with regard to Republicans anymore.