The United States has a bicameral legislature, of which the House of Representatives, is reflective of the population of each State, in which, the more populated States, get more representatives, and of which, each State is entitled to at least one representative, no matter how paltry their resident count may be. In regards to the other legislature branch, as part of all the compromises so having to be made in order to get a Constitution, passed and ratified, the Senate representation, was created so that each State, big, small, or medium-size would be entitled to two representatives each and therefore exactly two Senators per State. In theory, this was so done, so that the smaller States would therefore be signatories to the Constitution, with the knowledge, that they would therefore have a meaningful voice in legislative law.
The problem with the way the Senate is currently constructed, is that the biggest States of the Union, which are, California, Texas, Florida and New York, have about 33% of the United States population in their respective States, but just eight Senators in total. On the other hand, the 35 smallest States represent about 33% of the population, as well, but they have a total of seventy Senators, in total. This basically signifies that the smallest States of the Union, have at a minimum, the power to stifle just about any legislation that they don’t “cotton to,” and therefore this means on a substantive level, that the smaller States have the power to get what they so desire or to stop such, pretty much at not just the expense of the larger States, but also at the expense of the population, in whole. This in so many words, indicates that the Senate as currently reflected, demonstrates in action, that fair and equal democratic representation is not really part of its makeup.
The fact that we have exactly fifty States, does make for a nice symmetry and a fine design on our flag, but isn’t in itself a good or a meaningful reason to preclude the larger States from taking the proactive steps so needed in order to break themselves into smaller States, which not only would provide those States as they currently stand with more representation, but would do a greater service to their constituents; in addition to mitigating the advantages that the smaller States currently wield over the larger. The fact that this has not happened in recent times, is rather surprising, since the thirteen colonies, and their borders, were for the most part, not stagnant, until they became States, of which, even so, Virginia, itself, broke off into a separate State, known as West Virginia, in 1863.
While the smaller States, do deserve their proper representation, they have, at the present time, far more power than their numbers so warrant, and because their demographics in a lot of instances are significantly different from the United States as a whole, this essentially allows for the historic favored race and those that are its most conservative members of such to have an outsized influence upon national legislation. What so happens locally within a given State, is the business of that State, but what so happens to America, is the business of all Americans, not just those that are playing the angles in order to benefit a favored subset of Americans, for that isn’t in keeping with the American spirit of fair play for all.