Kill the Filibuster

The Democrats have a decent majority in the House of Representatives, a tiny lead in the Senate, and their guy in the White House. There is absolutely no reason for them to not deliver the transformative progressive agenda that many of them have promised, and which this country and world need.

There should be no talk of unity with the other side, finding common ground with Republicans. First of all, every Republican senator and member of the House who played any role in the January 6th insurrection and attempted coup needs to be expelled. There then needs to be a Constitutional amendment which allocates senators in coordination with state populations, because the idea that a state with almost forty-million people (California) has only two senators, the same as a state with a mere five-hundred-eighty-thousand (Wyoming) is goddamn bullshit.

But of course, as the argument goes, none of that can be done, let alone passing all the progressive legislation we need, with the Filibuster still in place.

The Filibuster needs to die.

While some believe the Filibuster a useful and sometimes necessary tool for a lone noble senator to prevent the passage of societally detrimental legislation by their corrupt peers, that’s essentially a fantasy. Jimmy Stewart, with his flop sweat, reedy babbling rants, and accidentally comical collapse from exhaustion, lied to us. In real life, there’s no Jefferson Smith fighting to keep a summer camp from being turned into a toxic waste dump, or whatever the hell that movie is about.

The Filibuster is a weapon of regressives used to prevent anything decent from being done. Much like the two senators per state rule and the Electoral College, the Filibuster is a relic from the country’s founding meant to give slave states disproportionate power in the federal government. It was then used in the Jim Crow era, and through to today, to allow former slave owners and their racist descendents, despite their representing a minority opinion and fewer constituents, to prevent the will of the majority being enacted.

If a huge majority of the country wants to ban puppy murder, and the slim majority of senators representing them brings an anti-puppy murder bill to the floor, but there’s one single puppy-murder-loving dipshit from Mississipi who says they’ll Filibuster (because these days you don’t even need to ramble on about nothing, delaying a vote, until you’re forced by exhaustion to take a prat fall onto the Senate floor; you can just say you’re going to Filibuster; all you have to do is send a fucking email) and suddenly they can’t pass the anti-puppy-murdering law with a simple majority of 51, but require sixty. And good luck finding nine Republicans to break ranks with the puppy-murder lobby.

The Democrats have 51 votes in the Senate, including VP Harris. If they’re forced to meet the 60 vote threshold for every bit of legislation, nothing truly valuable will be done. The Republican death cult won’t allow it.

But, something the Democrats can do with their 51 majority, is kill the Filibuster. And they should. They need to.

Obama’s first term started with a greater majority of Democrats in the House and Senate than there are now. They should have gotten rid of the Filibuster then, and Obama has even said they should do it now. Because they didn’t during his first term, years were wasted trying futilely to bargain with, and capitulating to, Republicans. They should have said fuck it then and they must say fuck it now, and kill the Filibuster to prevent further Republican obstruction.

The risk of that, say useless and cowardly middle-of-the-road “moderates,” is that if the Democrats kill the Filibuster and proceed to pass their legislative agenda, then the Republicans would do the same if/when they retake the majority.

However, Republicans are shit at passing legislation. Whatever their party used to be, they are now simply the party of obstruction. All they’re good at is making sure nothing good gets down. Unless it’s about cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, killing regulations, and passing ever more absurd defense budgets (hand in hand with the Democrats), they can hardly be bothered. Their forte is blocking or gutting popular laws, not crafting them.

Also, if amendments are made to better equate the power of Congresspeople proportionally to the number of people they represent, such as giving States like California several more senators, and giving Washington DC its rightful statehood, and locking up the criminals complicit in the coup attempt of January 6th, we likely won’t have to worry about Republicans holding a majority in the House or Senate again. Play this right, kill the Filibuster, pass the laws to establish fair representation, not beholden to slavers and racists, and change this country for the better.

Republicans will bemoan these tactics as a power grab. No shit. It’s about time the Democrats grab the power commensurate to their (however begrudging) support. The Republicans are the less popular party by a considerable margin and all they do are power grabs. What the fuck kind of “democracy” is in the stranglehold of minority rule? Let McConnel and the rest of the Republicans cry like the bitches they are, and may the Democrats finally show some goddamn backbone and represent the will of the people.

They can do it.

They need to do it.

They have no excuse not to do it.

If they don’t, it will be because of self-interested inaction and cowardice, and a betrayal to the majority of Americans they’re meant to represent.