What unnecessary struggle?
I can see how popular ideas are good from the standpoint of the majority of the population liking them. Some of that is being eroded now. For example, wanting to eliminate the 60 votes in the senate related to the filibuster as they already did with some conformation hearings (how can they use a 51 vote to abolish a 60 vote rule anyways, that seems to undermine the point). So now, we are reducing the amount of people necessary to like the law and reducing the likelihood of compromises to make laws less partisan and more acceptable to all. The downside to populist laws is that the people may not be educated in even the basics of how the system works (or is supposed to). Maybe it was a populist idea that things should be segregated by race. That doesn't make it right, and it infringes on the minority faction.