Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

We are aware of all internet traditions.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Come on, man.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Infrastructure week. at last.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Let there be snark.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / You Say You Won’t But Then You Do

You Say You Won’t But Then You Do

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I wonder if Mitch McConnell has finally gone too far, and the few Democrats for some unknown reason think the filibuster is in their best interests are finally tired of dumb boy talk. I mean, for all the times that he used the rules of the Senate to fuck us over, at some point basic equity and being tired of getting steamrolled might make the 50 Democrats who represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans do something to get their agenda passed.

Someone once told DougJ that the only thing separating Ezra Klein and David Broder is six feet of dirt, but even Ezra, who normally is as forceful as the sweatiest neckbeard at a polisci seminar, is saying that the Democrats need to get rid of the filibuster or they’ll lose Congress in 2022.

In 2022, thanks to Democrats actually doing something about COVID, we should be able to knock on doors again. What are we going to tell voters who say it doesn’t matter which party is in power? “We wanted to pass more COVID relief but the traditions of the Senate were more important than feeding your family.” is not going to move somebody to stand in line at the polls.

Reader Interactions

143Comments

  1. 1.

    germy

    “We are going to be extremely aggressive, investing in every state to make sure that in 2022
    Joe Biden has a majority that he can grow.” – DNC Chair Jaime Harrison

  3. 3.

    MisterForkbeard

    What amazes me is the McConnell is essentially filibustering to keep the senate from operating at all until we agree to keep the filibuster. Which is NUTS. Obviously self-contradictory, a circular logic wheel of obstruction.

    Really glad that the Dems recognize that Republicans just aren’t acting in good faith. Even if we do ultimately keep the filibuster, there’s not going to be any talk about Republicans just trying to do their jobs and so on. It’s going to be “McConnell and his loyal republicans are actively trying to sabotage the nation so they can make Democrats look bad”, and it’ll be pretty coordinated. They’ll leave room for Rs to come back around, but make it very clear what’s happening and that it’s not a “congressional” issue, it’s a “republican” issue.

  5. 5.

    pacem appellant

    I pulled the trigger and got a WaPo sub. I know they have some shitty opinion columnists, but thank the gods no Freidman or Brooks or any of the other suckers at the FTNYT. Any WaPo columnists I should just avoid? I want 2021 to be better on my blood pressure than 2016 through 2020.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    McConnell will probably cave before the Dems end the filibuster to get an organizing resolution passed.

  10. 10.

    aliasofwestgate

    @Baud:  Spin, but only partially. I think its also because we weren’t willing to risk a volunteer force on the odds that they wouldn’t get covid after all that contact. Safety for our people was just as important as the campaigns, and yeah will be a bit harder to make up for.

    But i think we’ll have it in hand.

  11. 11.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: I mean, he’s not wrong. A lot of organizers were really worried that when one side completely ignores covid and goes door-to-door and the other side doesn’t, that GOTV efforts would suffer and it appears that they did.

    So this IS spin, somewhat. But it’s also true.

  12. 12.

    jonas

     Ezra, who normally is as forceful as the sweatiest neckbeard at a polisci seminar,

    Lol. I’m stealing that bit…

  14. 14.

    lowtechcyclist

    In 2022, thanks to Democrats actually doing something about COVID, we should be able to knock on doors again.

    We could have done so last year, once it became clear (like in June) that Covid wasn’t passed by contact, and the risk of outdoor transmission was minimal, especially while masking and social distancing.  Wear mask, ring doorbell, step back six feet.  Safe.

  17. 17.

    Mike in NC

    My wife got a piece of junk mail today from something called “Garden & Gun”,  a magazine that advertises itself as ‘The Soul of the South’. WTF? Does it include tips on how to grow your very own assault rifle? I don’t even want to know.

  18. 18.

    Cermet

    This is exactly what I said earlier today in a previous thread. Glad someone is also concerned. We’ll lose the senate and maybe the House come 2024 if the dem’s refuse to pass the absoulte necessary relief the country needs. This might even threaten the life of the democracy – that slave era tradition to take away the rights of the majoriety by an evil minority must be done away. And yes, I’m ok if the thugs do retake the senate later and the fillibuster is gone – it has no place in a real democracy!

  20. 20.

    lowtechcyclist

    What are we going to tell voters who say it doesn’t matter which party is in power?

    Tru dat.  And really, the filibuster has been the biggest reason people say it doesn’t matter.

    Think of the past 40 years.  There have been times when Republicans have been in power, and times when Democrats have been.  And when the Dems have been in power, the GOP has used the filibuster to ensure that the Dems don’t get much accomplished.  Which shows up in the media as “Congress can’t agree on…” which people read as: both parties suck, and neither party is interested in making my life any better.

    So along comes Trump, seemingly from outside of politics, saying he can fix this.  And people buy into it: what do they have to lose?

    Quite a bit, as many of them found out.  But that was how he won in the first place.

    If the Dems let the filibuster stand, then they’ll lose in 2022.  But it’s about way more than just this election.  They should have gotten rid of it 28 years ago.  Better late than never, though.

  21. 21.

    Nicole

    Mr. Harrison wangled $25 out of me yesterday with his texted plea.  I give a little $ to the DNC via Act Blue every month, but can’t hurt to throw some extra.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    I believe a lot of the COVID relief package could be passed through reconciliation.  Ending the filibuster, or at least making enough of a realistic threat to deter Republicans from abusing it, is more important for other agenda items.

  24. 24.

    pacem appellant

    @JoyceH: Yeah, never clicking on Hewitt. That won’t be an issue.

     

    @MisterForkbeard: So far, the way I’m using the sub is to follow wapo on twitter, and when they post a news item I want to read, I can click on it w/o getting the free article countdown. I’m combining this with my newfound love of Twitter (Don’t hate me. It’s so much better than FB)

  28. 28.

    bluehill

    Mitch has only been concerned about getting and keeping power for a long time now, country be damned. It’s a poker game and he’s just raised by an amount to see if dems are committed, but not enough to really hurt if they call. Mitch knows that some dems want to keep to the filibuster, so he wants to figure out where the line is. On the other hand, he needs to save the filibuster for something more important and to get him to the midterms, so I can’t see this issue as the one where he’s going all in.

  29. 29.

    topclimber

    @Cermet: We need to kill the filibuster if only to remind our voters that we can never afford to let the GOP control both the Senate and Presidency EVER again. If our side doesn’t come out over the next 1-2 decades like we did in 2020, we will be screwed before significant change takes root.

    We need to keep our squishy brothers and sisters in the Dem coalition just a bit on edge.

  30. 30.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: one could end the ridiculous secret cloture rules and leave the filibuster in place, but then people would have to stand up publicly and explain why they were blocking bills.

  36. 36.

    germy

    JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A leader of the Brexit movement and newly appointed government trade adviser in the United Kingdom is now the head of a conservative think tank in the American South.

    Douglas Carswell, 49, started working this month as the new CEO and president of Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

    Carswell, a libertarian and former member of Britain’s governing Conservative Party, was a member of Parliament for 12 years and a co-founder of Vote Leave, the campaign that pushed the Brexit referendum in 2016.

    Carswell said his home country was his primary focus as the U.K. negotiated terms of its recently finalized split from the European Union. However, he said he has had a growing interest in working in the U.S.

    They’re not sending their best.

  37. 37.

    Immanentize

    @arrieve: I use the incognito tab to get past the pay wall* to always read Petri.  I’m trying to figure out how best to propose marriage.

    *Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls.

  38. 38.

    Jeffro

    @schrodingers_cat: Abernathy’s latest was, “here’s what Biden needs to do if he really wants ‘unity’…”.  Total Republican wish list, no accountability for the insurrection, etc etc ??

  39. 39.

    Kristine

    @pacem appellant: Some folks roll their eyes at Plum Line, and Greg and Paul can get a little grim at times, but I still read them. Jennifer Rubin, god help me, though it will be interesting to see if anything changes especially if Ds end the filibuster. Alexandra Petri. I’ve read Erik Wemple w/o wanting to throw my laptop against the wall.

  41. 41.

    narya

    I saw something this week, maybe last night?, I think on Chris Hayes, where the person discussing it basically said, first, McConnell isn’t the only one who knows the rules (because there are other tactics that can be used by Dems), and, second, if they do keep the filibuster, they can force the issue–make ’em actually stand there and talk. And I think that would make good press for the Dems: we want to get to work and pass these relief bills, and the other side doesn’t.

  42. 42.

    Benw

    I really hope Biden just fucking goes for it with COVID/economic relief. Let the losers scream about deficits. Krugman (and others) predict that the US is sitting on a massive economic rebound if we fix COVID, and I think our best shot to hold on in 2022 is:

    knock knock

    who’s there?

    Democrats and your life is back to normal

  44. 44.

    Kristine

    In other news, emailed both my senators and asked them not to give in to McConnell in any way because he will just turn around and club them with it. One of those senators is Durbin, who should be aware of that by now one hopes.

  45. 45.

    bemused senior

    @pacem appellant: I really like the WaPo, but my strategy is to read the news articles thoroughly, then Jen Rubin, Alexandra Petri, Eugene Robinson, Greg Sargent, Tumulty, Colbert King, Paul Waldman, Capehart, and of Republicans, Gerson, Boot, (I know, not entirely correctly labeled) Ignatius, Larry Summers.  Depends on time.

  46. 46.

    Barry

    “… the only thing separating Ezra Klein and David Broder is six feet of dirt”

    And far fewer excuses.  Broder came of age in a different time; Klein’s experience with politics pretty much starts with the Clinton-Dubya-Obama-Trump seesaw.

  47. 47.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: If I remember correctly Kay sort of agreed with your  point but was frankly relieved that there wouldn’t be our people going door-to-door in armed and angry red America. I think 1/6/21 events support that position.

  49. 49.

    Hoodie

    Push every spending item you can think of right now using reconciliation (I would imagine that the COVID money meets the requirements) and make it as big as possible because IIRC you only have limited opportunities to use reconciliation in a given year.  Hold back on killing the filibuster for the first big non-reconciliation issue with wide appeal, like raising the minimum wage to $15/hr with indexing.  It’s cool to have included the raised minimum wage in the original coronavirus package, as that forces McConnell to either eat it or separate it out into a standalone issue where it can be used to highlight obstructionism if he filibusters it.  Raising the minimum wage is not really an emergency issue as far as Covid relief is concerned, seeing that a lot of folks are already out of work, but it is a great issue for hammering GOP on obstructionism.  People are not going to get hung up on the difference between reconciliation and regular order.

  52. 52.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lowtechcyclist: Democrats were about publicly minimizing unnecessary risk and asking people to stay home. You really can’t square that with door-to-door visits when you’re explicitly telling people not to visit.

    So we COULD have done that, but it would have undermined what little stable covid messaging we had.

  54. 54.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Benw: One thing about the economic rebound is that it has to start in 2021 or early 2022 to have a beneficial effect on the ’22 elections. It takes TIME for the economy to sink it – people were still giving Trump credit for the “good economy” even in August, for example.

  55. 55.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Message on a website I’m looking at (the holder of my IRA):

    “You’ll need to download Macromedia Flash or upgrade your existing version to view this data. The upgrade takes approximately 1 minute with a 56k dial-up modem.”

    Is it possible this web page might be out of date?

  60. 60.

    Kent

    @Mike in NC:My wife got a piece of junk mail today from something called “Garden & Gun”,  a magazine that advertises itself as ‘The Soul of the South’. WTF? Does it include tips on how to grow your very own assault rifle? I don’t even want to know.

    I actually thought that was a parody magazine when I first encountered it in a Texas dental office waiting room 15 years ago.  But no.  It is a real thing.  Their target market is the rich douchey frat boy from Alabama who is now 30-something and married and has a wife who watches Fixer Upper.

  61. 61.

    Nicole

    @Kent: I dunno; I just googled their website and three of the articles on the main page were about a Memphis restaurant with immigrant and refugee chefs sharing their homeland’s dishes, a piece about the National Museum of African American Music (note: to self, go visit next time in Nashville), and ways to do service on MLK Day.  I think I kinda see why raven likes it.

  62. 62.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Someone once told DougJ that the only thing separating Ezra Klein and David Broder is six feet of dirt.

    Heh heh, and here I remember back when young Ezra ran the Pandagon blog.   That was when DougJ and I used to troll WaPo reporters who, back in the oughts, foolishly had weekly chat sessions and were shocked, shocked at the penetrating questions and people pointing out how stupid they were.  Yes, I’m thinking of Jim Fucking Vandehei and Louise somethingorother.

    That was pre-Twitter.  I’ll say one thing for Twitter, it’s allowed everybody to “work the refs” and make members of Our Feckless Corporate Media squirm a little bit.

  64. 64.

    catatonia

    Don’t know if it’s been posted, but Hank Aaron died. One of the true giants, and not just of baseball.

  66. 66.

    Martin

    If you are writing to your senators, consider including the following reasoning:

    The filibuster is a fine tradition when you have two parties acting in good faith. But 10 members of the GOP Senate lied to the American people and told them the election was stolen. That lie provided the motivation for the attack on Congress, and those Senators do not deserve the opportunity to veto Democratic legislation which would work to address these problems. If those 10 members are not held accountable, which Mitch McConnell has the power to do, then the GOP should lose the privilege that the filibuster affords them. Ending the filibuster very cleanly negates those 10 votes. Seditionists should not get to veto legislation designed to heal the nation. If Democrats cannot stand up for restoring order to the government, then they can’t count on Democrats turning out to support them in 2022.

    We barely escaped a coup. That requires urgent action and comity and tradition cannot have a higher priority than restoring security of the nation.

  67. 67.

    Angelwhine

    @Immanentize: I totally agree on this.  Let them talk and debate as much as they want…  but those days of obstructing everything and going home to nap should be eliminated.  I believe the ability to Filibuster everything without any real skin in the game has made it easy to avoid compromising.

    This increased risk of shitting yourself while you are talking / debating should avoid the rampant call to Filibuster, especially from our more senior statespeople.  This could force a bit of prioritization  to occur when you choose your hill to die on.

  69. 69.

    Kent

    @Nicole: There is a whole market for telling rich southern whites that they live in a diverse cosmopolitan culture and so things like systemic racism aren’t real and they are free to vote GOP.  And the “Yankees” who think they are all racist goobers are just wrong.

    When we lived in TX I don’t know how many white folks I knew who thought they were “woke” because they knew how to drive across the tracks to some whole-in-the-wall Black BBQ joint, or knew how to find the best taco truck in the Hispanic neighborhoods.

    But then they would always turn around and vote GOP because all is well.  And racism didn’t exist because “they didn’t see race”

    I mean I used to read those kinds of articles too, when I lived in the south.  But you have put things in context.

  71. 71.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Immanentize: I agree with you because I think Sinema’s  got bigger ambitions than the Senate and she wants the sheen of being a moderate. I did call her office and the intern let me know that he didn’t know where the Senator stood on the fillibuster(sure,sure.)

  72. 72.

    danielx

    You have tested NEGATIVE for COVID-19.

    Oh frabjous day! Daughter has recovered, spouse and I didn’t catch it, escape from Covid jail!

    I can actually go to the grocery!

  75. 75.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @catatonia: I saw that this morning. Sad part is that he got the COVID vaccine a couple of weeks ago. He specifically commented about publicizing his vaccine so that black people wouldn’t be scared to get it. Now, you damn well know it’s going to be distorted by some anti vaxxers as the cause of his death.

  76. 76.

    Evap

    The Senate map is really good for the blue team in 2022, it’s the House that I worry about.  Party in power loses seats in the midterm and all that.  At least in Georgia we’ll have a governor’s race to turn people out, if Stacey runs I expect we will have great turnout.  Hoping Carolyn Bordeaux can keep her seat, and Warnock wins his Senate race.

  78. 78.

    Nicole

    @Kent:

    There is a whole market for telling rich southern whites that they live in a diverse cosmopolitan culture and so things like systemic racism isn’t real and they are free to vote GOP

    That exists for rich northern whites, too.  Please see: The NY Times, among others.  I’m just saying the website didn’t scream total douchenozzle to me.  And yeah, I have to grant them, “Garden & Gun” is a more interesting title than “Southern Good Housekeeping.”

  79. 79.

    The Moar You Know

    My wife got a piece of junk mail today from something called “Garden & Gun”,  a magazine that advertises itself as ‘The Soul of the South’. WTF? Does it include tips on how to grow your very own assault rifle? I don’t even want to know.

    @Mike in NC: surprisingly decent magazine.  Good recipes, good articles on dogs, excellent restaurant reviews.  The “gun” part seems to be hunting stories.  No Confederate bullshit in the year I had my subscription, but not a lot in there for a native Californian either.

    Not what you’d think it is.  Most Juicers would find it irrelevant.

  80. 80.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @danielx: The reported rate of false negatives is 20%. However, the range of false negatives is from 0% to 30%, depending on the study and when in the course of infection the test is performed. – Harvard Medical School

  81. 81.

    kmeyerthelurker

    I can’t believe the dems are even considering keeping the filibuster.  Do they not remember the times they won the senate during the Obama administration, and McConnell persuading Reid that they would play nice if they kept it, then (surprise!) blocked 100% of everything?

    Anyone thinking McConnell does anything in good faith needs to read this piece by the deposed prince of Nigeria…

  83. 83.

    Hoodie

    @Nicole:

    Garden and Gun is a lifestyle magazine, kind of a combination of Southern Living and Field and Stream.  It comes out of Charleston, which is actually a bit of blue in deep red South Carolina.  It has a lot of this foodie and fashion stuff because that’s Charleston.   I can see why Raven sometimes gets exasperated by some of the stuff he reads here, a lot of which seems to come from the West Coast.

  84. 84.

    CaseyL

    @danielx: That is excellent news!  Congrats to you and your family!

    I, OTOH, have pulled back from going out for, well, just about anything. A real change, as a month ago I was happily and confidently making regular grocery runs.

    But the virus mutations turning up are said to be more contagious than the original one.  Much more contagious.

    So I’ll be getting everything delivered for a bit.

  88. 88.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Hoodie: I used to see their articles in my Facebook feed before I quit Facebook. I didn’t subscribe or follow, guess I was just in their target advertising demographic. I am a gardener and a gun owner, after all. The articles weren’t bad but the magazine name was ridiculous.

  91. 91.

    Redshift

    I presume everyone is calling their senators daily urging them to get rid of the Jim Crow filibuster? (h/t Heather McGhee, via Anand Giridharadas)

    .@hmcghee makes a brilliant point, citing @AJentleson. We should stop calling the filibuster “the filibuster.” We should call it “the Jim Crow filibuster.”

    Which is true to history, and may help with building the courage to scrap it.
    — Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) January 22, 2021

  92. 92.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Rick Perlstein had a good piece on the minoritarian tradition in America that produces things like rightwing revolts and the Senate filibuster.

  93. 93.

    patroclus

    Well, the Senate won’t vote on just “ending the filibuster.” What they’ll vote on is for cloture on the organizing resolution, that is, to end debate on bringing it to the Floor, and then, to end debate on the resolution itself. Then, failing 60 votes and only if Schumer actually has 50+1, they would appeal a ruling by the parliamentarian that the failure to reach 60 votes effectively kills the organizing resolution. So they wouldn’t be “ending the filibuster” – they would just be over-riding it on this specific issue. And thereby setting a precedent that they could do it again on legislative matters. The rule would still exist, but a new practice would be that it can be over-ridden. Which has already happened with appointments and judges and Justices.

    McConnell is playing a very risky game by demanding that this be resolved so early in the Session. The key is whether Schumer has 50+ votes now, or whether King/Manchin/Sinema won’t vote for it even on the organizing resolution. It’s possible that we don’t have the votes now, but might later. Like the vote to “pack” the House Rules Committee in 1961, I view this as the key to the entire Session.

  94. 94.

    opiejeanne

    Off topic, sorry, but we got one of the $600 Congressional credit cards. When my husband checked how much was on the card, it was $730. Both of our names are on it. Did they means test these payments?

    Has anyone else  understand this?

  95. 95.

    misterpuff

    @Mike in NC:“Garden & Gun”,  a magazine that advertises itself as ‘The Soul of the South’. WTF? Does it include tips on how to grow your very own assault rifle?

    Pistols and Stamen.

  99. 99.

    Haroldo

    @pacem appellant:

    Any WaPo columnists I should just avoid?

    I’ve not read through most of the responses. I see the vile Hewitt’s already been mentioned. Steer clear of Gary Abernathy, too

    ETA – I see Abernathy’s been mentioned.  And that jackass Thiessen, too.

  100. 100.

    Benw

    @MisterForkbeard: “it takes TIME for the economy”

    yes! IIRC it really hurt Obama in 2010 that the stimulus was smaller and slower than it should have been, too.

    Hopefully Biden remembers and will launch relief ASAP!

  101. 101.

    Redshift

    @Martin:

    If you are writing to your senators, consider including the following reasoning:

    Very good points, but I urge everyone to call rather than write (or call first and then write.) My understanding is that call volume is harder to ignore than emails, and while paper correspondence is also good, it won’t get there in time to affect the filibuster decision.

  104. 104.

    Redshift

    @opiejeanne:

    Off topic, sorry, but we got one of the $600 Congressional credit cards. When my husband checked how much was on the card, it was $730.

    Has anyone else know understand this?

    Is it for both of you? Depending on your income, you may get less than $600, I believe.

  105. 105.

    TomatoQueen

    WaPo has a nice group of critics, Dirda usually very good, guest editorials from people who know something about their subjects cos this town is like that, Farenthold, Alexandra Petri, good to excellent sports writing from a long-standing tradition of same, Robin Givhan, Michele Singletary, and in depth investigative reporting–not as much as in the past but when they do it they do it well. And, you can read the daily print edition online, which I don’t do enough but am still glad to see it’s part of the subscription. Discl: I worked for the syndication department for two years in the late 70s, right after the fame thing, and my first job out of college. This means I worked for the print paper, a different thing from the digital.

  107. 107.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Here’s an interesting piece about filibuster reform. My own preferred “solution” is a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the filibuster. It’s a defacto subversion of the constitutionally-mandated simple majority required to pass legislation.

  108. 108.

    Peale

    @Benw: It wasn’t Obama who was hurt in 2010. He kept is job and won reelection, because he personally was popular. No, the people who lost their jobs were Democratic Congressmen, Senators and unfortunately governors and state legislatures. All of that hurt Obama, but those Senators hurt themselves as well by not doing anything to make themselves popular and not doing anything but looking like they were more interested in sharing power with the GOP.  To a lot of us “I wanna be bi-partisan” means “I don’t think Democrats are a grown up party who can do anything without a permission slip”. Its hard to make a case that you should be in charge when you constantly want to delegate power to your competition. Maybe in the end the 2010 version of the GOP was better. I don’t think it was. But a bunch of Dem Senators acted like if they were in charge, they’d hurt the country.

  111. 111.

    scav

    Somehow Garden and Gun does evoke a rather aggressive method of obtaining high-quality fertilizer. Still, I suppose props for trying to span both halves of a mythical stereotypical marriage? Is its sister publication Home and Automotive Detailing?

  112. 112.

    CaseyL

    I have submitted comments to my Senators, and to Senator Schumer (as the Majority Leader), via their website contact forms.  Which I assume someone in their offices pays attention to .

  113. 113.

    Kent

    The biggest problem with the filibuster as it exists today is that the GOP has rigged it so that there is no filibuster for EVERYTHING that they want, which is basically three things:

    1.  Judges
    2. Tax cuts
    3. De-regulation (accomplished through executive branch failure to enforce existing laws)

    But everything Democrats want mostly requires legislation so…”norms” and all.

    What the Dems should have fucking done is tell the GOP that they will consider retaining the filibuster if the GOP was willing to subject ALL of Trump’s SCOTUS nominees to 60 votes. There are PLENTY of conservative judges who could have gotten 60 votes in the Senate.  They didn’t even try.

  115. 115.

    Kent

    @Peale: The other thing that happened in 2010 was Citizens United, so Dems were SWAMPED by sea of dark money funding all manner of tea party bullshit.  That seems to have been forgotten. But 2010 was the first post-Citizens United election and a lot of individual Democrats faced a sea of dark money in their local districts for the first time.  Endless unattributed dark money ads.

    Citizens United was decided January 21, 2010, perfect timing to gear up a tsunami of dark money for the 2010 fall elections.

  118. 118.

    sab

    @opiejeanne: Means test for income AGI between $75,000 and $87,000. Anything above 87,000 you don’t get anything.

    I spoke too soon. I don’t know of that is per tax return or per person.

  122. 122.

    sdhays

    @Immanentize: I really don’t understand why that isn’t the answer. It’s perfectly fine to give the minority the ability to block things that they really care about, but they need to care enough to really work at it.

    Just withholding votes is ridiculous. That’s a not a “filibuster”. That’s simply imposing super-majority requirements on a body that was never intended to require a super-majority. The only place where that was a reasonable thing to do was for judges since once they’re appointed, they’re there for life, but since that’s been nuked, the cloture rule should go.

  123. 123.

    topclimber

    @Martin: No, the filibuster is not a fine tradition at all. It is the successor to the 3/5ths compromise in the way it allows racists and plutocrats to wield inordinate power.

    The Senate is already an anti-democratic institution, more so than in 1789 when the disparity between high population states and low population states was far less than today.

    Frack anything that adds yet another choke-hold to effective governance.

    Frack a last ditch mechanism where Dems hope to somehow hang on by their fingernails against a plutocratic Republican majority. Work like hell instead  to keep the GOP out of power.

  124. 124.

    topclimber

    @Mai Naem mobile: If you get Manchin I think you get Angus King. If you get those two, Sinema will not want to be the one who thwarts the will of the Dem caucus. That way lies crappy Committee assignments and a ton of money to the Dem who primaries her.

  125. 125.

    Kent

    @topclimber:

    @Martin: No, the filibuster is not a fine tradition at all. It is the successor to the 3/5ths compromise in the way it allows racists and plutocrats to wield inordinate power.

    The Senate is already an anti-democratic institution, more so than in 1789 when the disparity between high population states and low population states was far less than today.

    Frack anything that adds yet another choke-hold to effective governance.

    Frack a last ditch mechanism where Dems hope to somehow hang on by their fingernails against a plutocratic Republican majority. Work like hell instead  to keep the GOP out of power.

    Here is the thing.  The GOP doesn’t really even have a legislative agenda of any kind and hasn’t in over a decade.  The last time I can recall when there was a very serious piece of GOP legislation that would have been subject the filibuster was when Bush wanted to privatize social security.  That was a LONG LONG time ago.  They used to do shit like “No Child Left Behind” and welfare reform. But those days are long ago.

    These days the only thing the GOP wants to do is cut taxes cut regulations, and confirm fascist judges.  And they already ditched the filibuster for all of those things.

    These days the filibuster is only a GOP tool to obstruct progressive legislation.  There is nothing really for the Dems to keep their powder dry for, since the modern GOP doesn’t even do legislation anymore aside from Tax Cuts which they do through reconciliation.

  126. 126.

    Feathers

    The Senate is a problem. We need someone to come up with a serious proposal for constitutional amendment(s) to deal with it. Maybe not put it up for votes right away, but start the debate now so that it can be normalized as a discussion topic and something that needs to be addressed.

    There must be an end to this American exceptionalism that says we must keep doing everything in the way that we always have because it is the source of our wonderfulness. We need to be open about the fact that what is wrong with America today is the fault of the compromises the founders made to the slave holding states. If we want to be truly free and fulfill the promise of America, these must be undone.

    And fuck Mitch and any Dem who wants to hang on to the filibuster.

  127. 127.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Kent:

    Here is the thing.  The GOP doesn’t really even have a legislative agenda of any kind and hasn’t in over a decade.  The last time I can recall when there was a very serious piece of GOP legislation that would have been subject the filibuster was when Bush wanted to privatize social security.  That was a LONG LONG time ago.  They used to do shit like “No Child Left Behind” and welfare reform. But those days are long ago.

    These days the only thing the GOP wants to do is cut taxes cut regulations, and confirm fascist judges.  And they already ditched the filibuster for all of those things.

    These days the filibuster is only a GOP tool to obstruct progressive legislation.  There is nothing really for the Dems to keep their powder dry for, since the modern GOP doesn’t even do legislation anymore aside from Tax Cuts which they do through reconciliation.

    This is a really good point.

  128. 128.

    Another Scott

    BothSiderist-Reporter: “By a vote of 58 to 42, today Senate Democrats failed to …”

    The filibuster/cloture rule needs to go.

    Whether they nuke it completely, or just defang it, or make it only apply to legislation affecting West Overshoe, NE on a blue moon in a leap year, I don’t much care.  But the majority ultimately has to be able to govern.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  131. 131.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Yeahbut, a big, bad, trouble with reconciliation is (Wikipedia):

    Reconciliation bills can be passed on spending, revenue, and the federal debt limit, and the Senate can pass one bill per year affecting each subject. Congress can thus pass a maximum of three reconciliation bills per year, though in practice it has often passed a single reconciliation bill affecting both spending and revenue.[2] Policy changes that are extraneous to the budget are limited by the “Byrd Rule”, which also prohibits reconciliation bills from increasing the federal deficit after a ten-year period or making changes to Social Security.

    (Emphasis added.)

    It’s yet another way that arcane rules that work just fine when people respect norms and do their jobs, but hampers actual progress in the times we’re in now.

    Given all the things that need to be done, and that need to have money spent on, rolling them into gigantic bills is not the way to go. Look at the broken budget process for the way it typically has gone in the last few decades. Congress needs to be able to pass focused bills that cost money, and ones that address non-money issues.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  132. 132.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Redshift:

    Just came here to post about this.

    "The moderate wing of the Democratic Party has got their history wrong about where the filibuster comes from. It is a Jim Crow era relic," Heather McGhee says. "It's one of the many ways that structural racism is holding back the hands of progress. Not just for people of color."
    pic.twitter.com/JMHYOhtywU

    — MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 22, 2021

    She name-checks Adam Jentleson and his new book, Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. I think I’m going to read it.

  133. 133.

    sab

    @Steeplejack (phone): That is interesting, but I don’t care where it came from. I care about its history since. McConnell’s intransigence has eviscerated its usefulness. Why have this last ditch protection for blocking your opponents legislative agenda when their only legislative agenda is blocking yours.

  134. 134.

    cmorenc

    When McConnell really wanted to push through right-wing SCOTUS nominees, he blasted a loophole right through the ability of Ds to use the filibuster threat to pressure for more moderate nominees.  Just saying, Ds….

  135. 135.

    Steeplejack

    @sab:

    It undercuts the argument that the filibuster is some noble tradition from a golden past, and so we can’t get rid of it, despite its current inconvenience.

  140. 140.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: Sorry I wasn’t clear.  That was just an example of what has happened in the past, as recently as last year, IIRC.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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