Republicans must absolutely destroy the Filibuster

As incredible and providential as Donald Trump’s election victory was, it’s hard not to shake the feeling that we’re living on borrowed time. By now, Democrats may be well on their way to tightening their stranglehold on the American electorate, using their imagined “permanent Democratic majority,” won through entitlement, racial hatred, and illegal immigration, to push through structural changes that will put them in power. would love. forever. Instead, Republicans, who control every branch of the federal government thanks to Trump’s glittering career, have been gifted with another bite at the apple. We waste this opportunity at our peril.

The above statement will be accompanied by all kinds of debates. Trump’s cabinet choices are already raising eyebrows even among some conservatives. Overall, however, he has done a good job of picking people who will implement his agenda and threaten the establishment. There will be deportations, judicial choices, executive orders, and hopefully a lot of good news from the new Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy-led Department of Government Efficiency. Hopefully we’ll enjoy all or most of those things. There will also be efforts, since Republicans control both houses of Congress, to implement a legislative agenda. We probably won’t enjoy that.

Why? The answer is the same reason Republicans have failed to pass anything truly meaningful for decades: the Senate filibuster. Ironically and predictably, Democrats are now embracing the convenient tool they once tried to abolish just a few years ago. The brazen attempts by Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal, Chris Murphy, Chuck Schumer and others to essentially beg for mercy and allow them to use the filibuster they once wanted to destroy while in power to keep Republicans next four years are the definition of chutzpah, but these people have no shame. And the Republicans, being the Stupid Party they have been for decades, are more than happy to agree.

New Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to keep the filibuster intact. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any Republicans who have spoken out against this position. That could change, however, if newly elected President Donald Trump steps in after realizing he can’t otherwise approve anything substantive. Even Senator John Fetterman, the pragmatist, acknowledged that he would hardly blame Republicans if they did what his own party has long threatened to do.

Those who argue that the filibuster would take away a key function that the nation’s framers installed might be surprised to know that the framers never actually installed the filibuster in its current form. Until the 1970s, when the “silent filibuster” became a thing, there were always physical limits on how long a senator could stand, speak and delay proceedings. Senators in the minority on an issue have delayed and even overturned some legislation, but at least they had to earn it. Cloture votes did not exist until 1917, when a two-thirds majority requirement was placed in Senate rules. This was changed again in 1975 to the current 60.

Even recently, the filibuster has been weakened. Democrats changed the rules in 2013 to allow for a simple majority vote for executive and judicial nominees; Then in 2017, Republicans returned the favor for Supreme Court nominees. So it’s not like either party is abolishing the filibuster or even abolishing the silent filibuster, and it would be unconstitutional to make senators earn it again. In fact, the Constitution doesn’t address filibusters at all!

In his piece last week on the issue, RedState’s Ward Clark pokes fun at Democrats for their hypocrisy but, like most, argues that Republicans should keep the filibuster anyway, even to their own detriment: And there will undoubtedly be some calls from the right to change or eliminate the filibuster out of frustration,” he wrote. “Those calls should be ignored. The filibuster is there for a good reason. The Republican Senate and activists on the right must remember that sooner or later that shoe will be on the same foot again; the Republicans will be in the minority again, and they will make good use of the filibuster to keep things somewhat sane. That is a pendulum that never stops swinging.”

Clark’s arguments that the filibuster was put in place for “good reasons” are certainly sound. Certainly, in a perfect world, the Senate would indeed be the “cooling saucer for the passions of the House.” In an era when two parties generally predominated, when the main difference between political parties was far less stark than it is today, when not every piece of proposed legislation had the potential to rock the world of at least half the country to put it, there are things that actually got done despite the looming possibility that a filibuster would ruin the works.

Of course, today’s political climate is as far removed from those collegiate eras as anything we’ve seen since the Civil War. And while you could argue that this means we need the filibuster now more than ever, I’d say that if you’re depending on the filibuster to save us, you’re relying on a paper tiger. That bulwark that is supposed to combat excesses and promote bipartisanship is just a rule that can be scrapped at any time at the whim of 51 senators or 50 plus the wrong vice president. That’s right. The filibuster itself is not filibuster-proof!

And therein lies the problem, for those of us with memories longer than a minute remember how the Cheshire Cat communists who retreated into a fetal position and now (and also during the first Trump administration) begged for mercy, openly tried to to change rules when it suited them in 2021. As sure as the sun rises tomorrow if they return to power, Democrats WILL destroy the filibuster. They will do it without hesitation and grace, and nothing will stop them, especially since the two lone filibuster defenders in their party, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, will be long gone. Then they will easily endure such nightmares as election reform (i.e. legalized fraud), lawsuits, amnesties, and other structural changes that will make it virtually impossible for Republicans to win again.

To Republicans, I say it is time to stop acquiescing. It’s time to strike while the iron is hot, to lay the hammer down on the Democrats, who we all know are eager to do the same to us. Because our only hope for a lasting Republican majority is to pass meaningful legislation that improves the lives of Americans, legislation that will be difficult, if not impossible, for Democrats to cancel without significant political backlash. It’s time to pass the Trump agenda, the populist agenda – everything – and let the chips fall where they may.

It would be one thing if Republicans could use the “nuclear” threat to somehow strengthen the filibuster so that Democrats couldn’t abolish it themselves if given the chance, but no such path exists . Any deal would depend entirely on the word of coiled snakes waiting to strike when the time is right. And we should never trust snakes or democrats.

Like it or not, the Senate filibuster is going away. The atomic bomb IS about to explode. The question is whether it will be the Republicans or the Democrats who will strike first. If the Republicans get the first chance, at least we have a chance. If it’s the Democrats, the country as we know it is over.