Tipsheet

Another Liberal Confused on Senate and Basic Math: Don Lemon Rants Against 'a Minority Ruling the Majority'

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  January 15, 2022 6:45 PM

Here we go again. Every so often a liberal laments the blockage of legislation that "a majority" apparently supports. In doing so, they forget that in a 50-50 Senate, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) joining their Republican colleagues in opposing something, say nuking the filibuster to pass voting legislation along partisan lines, amounts to 52 senators, and thus is a majority. Despite that, during Thursday's edition of "CNN Tonight," host Don Lemon ranted against a "minority ruling the majority."

Lemon has joined the loud chorus of leftists ranting and raving against the filibuster to the point of forgetting basic math. 

"This is what you call -- I mean it's flat out it's a minority ruling the majority. That's what it is," he claimed during his opening monologue, as highlighted by Nicholas Fondacaro with NewsBusters. "It's what happens when you have a -- a razor-thin majority but a minority party explicitly saying, 'we're not going to work with you.' A minority party who appears voting rights, they don't really care about it. It doesn't matter to them."

In the opening, Lemon also acknowledges that Biden is "admitting defeat," as other liberals, including Biden himself, have done.

"So, the President admitting defeat because the GOP won't protect the vote. I mean, it's really mainly about the GOP because you can't get one or two when it's usually bipartisan. But you can't get one or two, even a couple? Nope," Lemon lamented. "GOP won't protect the vote. Two members of his own party won't carve out the filibuster to make it happen."

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While Lemon's points are typical for the Democratic narrative, the legislation in question is not so much about "protect[ing] the right to vote," but rather about the federal takeover of elections and the dismantling of our system of the separation of powers because. With outlandish claims that Election Day in the future will merely be a "charade," or that 2022 could be the last election, Democrats are reacting with hysteria to the possibility that elections may not go their way.

Sens. Manchin and Sinema have indicated that they support the voting legislation in question, but are not willing to change the Senate rules in order to do so. Manchin has repeatedly mentioned that he would need filibuster reform to have bipartisan support in order for him to support it, and the current plans of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) do not have have such support. 


Further, when it comes to the minority party, which Lemon also addresses, the minority party has rights and is afforded protections as well, hence the filibuster. The Untied States is not a democracy and the Senate is not meant to be a democratic body; that would be the House. It took until the 17th amendment was ratified in 1913 for senators to even be directly elected. 

Lemon is not the only leftist to get confused on how many senators support a rule change, about a piece of legislation when it comes to this 50-50 Senate, or just how our government works. 

Manchin has received a lot of heat not only for his stance on keeping the filibuster, but for his opposition to the Build Back Better Act, a key piece of Biden's legislative agenda. 

As I covered last month, ABC News took some heavy criticism for tweeting out "A single senator is about to seriously set back an entire presidential agenda," when sharing an article from the Associated Press with the headline "Power of one: Manchin is singularly halting Biden's agenda." Of course, with Manchin plus 50 Republican senators also opposing Build Back Better, that would be 51.

But there's more.

As Matt highlighted in October, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who is the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, tweeted out that "2 senators cannot be allowed to defeat what 48 senators and 210 House members want. We must stand with the working families of our country. We must combat climate change. We must delay passing the Infrastructure Bill until we pass a strong Reconciliation Bill."

There was also a September 30th tweet from MSNBC's Ari Melber, who is the network's chief legal correspondent and has his own show, that did not understand the concept that each state has two senators regardless of population. It's the House--the purposefully more democratic body of the two--where population factors into representation. 

Despite how the plan is doomed to fail, the Senate will still be holding a vote on Tuesday on voting legislation and then to change the Senate rules.