While tangential to your main point, the way I read Dred Scott is that Taney wrote that oft-cited & infamous statement while describing the circumstances he believed to apply at the time the Constitution was adopted. If he believed black people had no rights a white man was bound to respect in contemporary US society why did he vote with the majority in the Amistad case (to name one example)?

To your main point, yes, the republic is in bad shape right now. We must do away with the electoral college, require all elections be funded by state or federal sources—no more fund-raising contests & big money deciding who's who. I'd also reform gerrymandering by not allowing the particular party in power to redistrict except perhaps once every ten years, perhaps post-census.

Not sure about elected justices. We get bad courts, yes, but we've also had good ones & mightn't elections also reduce their power?

Great piece, William!