The system, at least at the federal level, is stuck, to the dissatisfaction of everyone except Mitch McConnell. Due to the filibuster and the reactionary Supreme Court, the left is all but powerless; the right is also constrained by the filibuster, and by decades of precedent in the judicial system, to say nothing of the literal language of the Bill of Rights.
In the long run, a political process that doesn’t produce meaningful results is unsustainable. Fortunately for us, we’ve been here before, at least at the state level, so we have some idea of how to respond. Rapid urbanization without reapportionment led to completely unrepresentative legislatures, which governed purely in the interest of rural residents and big business. A large part of the answer at the turn of the 20th century was the referendum. Why can’t the same thing be done at the federal level?
The Constitution neither authorizes nor prohibits national referenda, so any such elections would be legal, but could not be binding on Congress. Nevertheless, it would take a very brave or foolish member of Congress to ignore the clear will of the American people.
National referenda would not be appropriate for budgetary issues; they could only be used for matters of clear national importance in which the options can be distilled to two, or at least just a few. Over the next few days, I will provide examples of how this could work.