Filibustering is an anti-democratic practice that I don’t know exists anywhere but in the USA, where it has mainly served to preserve racial inequalities.
It gets even more problematic when you consider that the 50 republican senators represent only 40% of the US population, whereas the 50 democratic senators represent roughly 60%. A result of each state having the same amount of senators regardless of population size. But fine, the house of representatives is supposed to better mirror the actual population, and the senate is there to allow the states, not the general public, to have more influence on the national level. I get that.
But then on top of that you have gerrymandering...
This is a problem specific to first past the post voting, and couldn’t happen in countries like Germany or Sweden who have proportional voting systems, ie if a party get 10% of the votes, they should have 10% of the seats. Inventive reenginering of districts won’t make any difference in a proportional system.
Now, each country has its own traditions and form of government, and that’s fine. But the way the American system works in many ways goes against the concept of one man, one vote and equal representation for all. There have now been three instances where the candidate who won the popular vote did not become president. Once in the 19th century, then Dubya vs Gore and Trump vs Clinton. To me that is signalling that the system is broken and needs fixing.
Unless, of course, you are happy with a system where the winner isn’t necessarily the candidate who gets the most votes... but then maybe you shouldn't call it a democracy.
Getting rid of the filibuster, which has as it’s sole purpose the obstruction of voting on legislation which is supported by a majority in the senate, would be a great start for moving toward a more direct democracy and less gridlock.