Despite all the talk in the press regarding the departure of President Trump leading a return to sanity in D.C. as adults return to the leadership of the country, the Democrats have been acting like a collection of petulant loons. Looking over the distemper and hysterics coming from The Hill you do not get the vibe that this is a group who won last November. The current effort sees this crowd not only acting with emotional fervor but completely ignoring history -- both ancient, and last year.
One subject dominating headlines is the push in the Senate to remove the filibuster. There is only one reason behind this and that is the foot-stomping frustration the Democrats feel with a 50/50 split in the chamber. You hear all of the sophomoric mewling from now, how it is not fair, this is undemocratic, and they are blocking the will of the voters. Dems can only produce these blanket-clutching tears by operating with the belief they have been delivered a mandate in the election. Looking at the mere fact they are in an equally divided chamber, and the GOP gained over a dozen seats in The House shows they were not.
So in response to not getting their way with everything the Democrats are overreacting by making a call to completely revise a time-tested tool. In the exact same fashion they passed their decision years back regarding The Nuclear Option, the Short-Sighted Party now wants the filibuster removed, oblivious that it will someday roar back and bite them harder when the GOP rises back into power.
The amusement in all of this is the hysterics these Democrats are using to describe a method in the Senate they have been borderline obsessed with employing themselves. There are a number of claims being made about the filibuster which are either completely obtuse, or at the very least half-truths. None of them make a damned bit of sense, especially when weighed against the very actions of this same party with the filibuster. For them to sell this effort the Democrats basically insist you do not look back at their recent behavior from just a few months ago, so let us pick through the arguments being made and expose the idiocy of those trying to sell this snake oil.
The Filibuster is Racist
Of course we would have to hear this default accusation leveled by the party that sees race in everything. How is a voting method in the Senate racist? Well that is never cogently explained. The best they can manage is that currently it can be used to block the disastrous voting bill the Dems are trying to push right now, which they claim is disenfranchising POC voters disproportionately. (We just need to ignore the massive voter turnout seen last November for this fable to stand.)
Others have strained to show past examples of the filibuster being used to block anti-racism legislation to make the case. In 1922 it was used to halt anti-lynching bills. The first introduction of civil rights was in 1957 before being blocked, and then during the 1964 reintroduction of the bills the longest filibuster in Senate history took place. Small matter that each one of these instances were performed by Democrat senators. The message is they are not racist, their ability to block racial bills is racist...somehow.
The Filibuster Is A Relic of the Jim Crow Era
This is part of the racist claim, as it cements the hate behind this rule; as shown, it is an alleged hate the Dems have not shied away from, but still the charge is allowed to stand. The problem with this accusation is those delivering it are historically stunted. The people who should know better do not tell us that while Jim Crow laws bloomed after the close of the Civil War, the Senate filibuster had been in use for decades already.
Some have said the filibuster was created by Aaron Burr when in truth he simply paved the way for its emergence. As vice president he called to eliminate an expedient vote procedure seen as being unneeded. His proposal was later undertaken by the Senate after his term, and in the wake no other method of ending debates on the floor was installed. This allowed for the creation of a filibuster method to take place.
The Filibuster is an Archaic Device
Do a search on social media for ‘’filibuster’’ and ‘’archaic’’ and you will be flooded with returns. It has become the go-to talking point on the matter, and trotting out this claim is a deft move in a certain fashion. True, the filibuster is an old concept in one regard; the rule change creating the vacuum that allowed for this was made in 1806. But to pretend that the filibuster is something Mitch McConnell recently discovered in the Senate archives, as Adam Schiff attempts to do, and that he is unfairly enforcing today to the dismay of the sainted Democrat leadership is laughable as it gets.
While there has been a notable increase in this procedure during the new millennium, it is impossible for the Democrats to stand up today and denounce the practice of employing the filibuster is an unfair GOP maneuver. The filibuster has been invoked in record amounts over the past 4 years in an effort to block potential legislation from Donald Trump and the GOP majority.
''Use of the racist filibuster is an unfair action that threatens democracy and blocks the will of the American people as it gives undue power to the minority party in the Senate!''
— Brad Slager- Tavernus Bourbonicus Neanderthal (@MartiniShark) March 25, 2021
-- Senate Democrats who used the filibuster in record amounts until just a few months ago pic.twitter.com/SRkRujnIG1
The Filibuster Is a Tool That is Being Abused
As that chart shows, when it comes to abusing the filibuster the Democrats know what they are talking about as they are delivering their outrage from the position of experience. They also deliver it from the position of rampant hypocrisy.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich sounds very displeased as he makes his bid to have the filibuster eliminated. “Too often the filibuster has been used to block our country’s continued march toward equality. We must change this,’’ he says with passion, and then goes further. “I cannot support the continued abuse of the filibuster in the United States Senate.” On this I guess we can call Heinrich an expert on the matter. Over the past six years Heinrich has invoked the filibuster over 340 times. That is a rate of more than once per week. He is borderline obsessed with the filibuster. But suddenly today it is a nefarious tool of abuse by the Republicans - who have not invoked its use once in the past four years.
I am probably just being unfairly meticulous if I were to point out that a few years ago Heinrich signed onto a bi-partisan letter that called for the preservation of the Senate rules requiring the 60-vote threshold be maintained. Still, it seems an important detail in this debate...
Also displaying a curious turnabout on the subject is Elizabeth Warren. She has been one of those who has not shied away from calling out the filibuster as a tool of racism, and an outward threat to our democracy. She has very strong opinions on this and she is extremely firm in her position -- now. Except -- the woman who declares the filibuster has ‘’deep roots in racism’’ was using the filibuster herself recently. In the summer of 2020 Warren used the filibuster to kill a police reform bill, dubbed The Justice Act. It had been legislation written by Tim Scott, of South Carolina.
This means that just nine months ago Elizabeth Warren was perfectly at ease using this tool of racist oppression to block a bill written by a POC senator.
These are the people bleating loudly about this devious tool of the Senate. The best thing to do in response when they raise their newly found objections is to simply talk over their empty claims, and move on.