You dropped an adjective: wealthy
The 17th amendment is a little over 100 years old.
People need to stop treating the US constitution as this "mythical" thing rather than the reality of it being a very undemocratic document that is highly resistant to change.
Luckily the house can be expanded with a simple majority IN the house, one way to truly combat this.
Thomas Sowell's Conflict of Visions describes the difference well.