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There are no saviors or happy endings in politics — just a grueling, soul-sucking, forever-war of attrition.
Everyone in power seems to forget this detail. That includes President Donald Trump, who has again decided to exert pressure on Republicans to overturn the legislative filibuster and end the Democrat-generated government shutdown.
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“Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We have to get the country open. And the way we’re going to do it this afternoon is to terminate the filibuster,” the president reportedly told Republican senators at a breakfast this week.
Nuking the filibuster is unprincipled, but it also makes little political sense. Trump would be doing Democrats a huge favor by greasing the wheels for exploiting fleeting one-party national majorities in the future, which will allow them to shove through massive generational “reforms” without any national consensus. And they would be able to do it without taking any political heat for nuking the filibuster.
The Democrats’ hypocrisy on the filibuster has been jaw-dropping. In recent years, though, they’ve coalesced around an argument that says the 60-vote threshold to cut off debate in the Senate is antiquated — a “Jim Crow relic,” said one-time filibuster champion former President Barack Obama — and fundamentally “undemocratic.” Democrats contend that the filibuster facilitates “minority rule,” by which they mean “federalism.”
Yes, filibusters protect the minority because crass majoritarianism is objectively un-American, as is centralized one-party “democratic” rule from Washington. The filibuster isn’t in the Constitution, but in many ways it is one of the last tools left in D.C. that can limit the power of the federal government and compel separation of powers.
“I think we give President Trump whatever he wants,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said this week, “and we go from there and give him a chance to save this country, because if we continue down this path, we’re not going to make it as the country that you and I grew up in.”
This statement, it should be stressed, is cultish and beneath the dignity of a senator. More than that, though, Tuberville has it backward. The filibuster has saved this country many times in recent years — and it will do so again in the future.
Trump fans who argue that Republicans haven’t “conserved” anything over the past 30 to 40 years have a difficult time wrapping their heads around the concept of a counterhistory. Obama-era Democrats would have fundamentally remade the United States had the minority GOP not legally obstructed their efforts to foist massive changes on states, including by using the filibuster.
Even as a political consideration, ending the filibuster is counterproductive. Trump warns that Democrats will trash the 60% threshold the first chance they get. Maybe. But they had already tried to eliminate it during former President Joe Biden’s term and failed. There’s no guarantee that Democrats from purple or red states are going to go along with the effort. There’s no guarantee, either, that Democrats won’t balk if they sense real electoral repercussions.
Even if Trump is right, and Democrats end up changing the rule, what benefit is there in paving the way for a bare majority to pack the Supreme Court or pass a national abortion bill? Especially for something as trivial as breaking a rickety impasse over a Democrat-provoked shutdown, which most voters couldn’t care less about. It’s not like this situation is some republic-shattering moment. The same senators who would end the legislative filibuster would find themselves negotiating the same exact issues in a few months. Why not give in now and keep the filibuster?
Some Make America Great Again activists argue that Republicans should nuke the filibuster and then jam through a raft of big bills that would put Democrats on their heels for the foreseeable future.
This is a partisan delusion.
The Republican coalition is made up of moderates from Maine, social conservatives from Oklahoma, and populists from Missouri. There will be little agreement on what issue deserves a big reform bill, much less what a bill should look like. Not to mention, the word “conservative” strongly insinuates that, traditionally speaking, the Right has less of a propensity to embrace technocratic laws that embed themselves into the infrastructure of the state.
A future left-wing majority could overturn those laws just as easily as it could pass new ones. On the other hand, every new wave of leftism, increasingly strident and socialistic, promises to remake the nation. The massive welfare state expansions that one expects Democrats to cram through are unlikely ever to be dislodged. We see the problem today with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and “temporary” Obamacare subsidies Democrats demand the GOP extend. Once the Left creates dependency, it is virtually impossible to wean voters off it.
Of course, if there were seesawing of parties passing big national economic bills that cancel each other out every few years, that would be potentially calamitous, as well. The filibuster moderates our politics, but it also creates stability.
Trump’s view on the filibuster is, unsurprisingly, egotistical. As far as I can tell, the president has never offered any broader argument for why it should or shouldn’t exist other than that it’s bad for him politically. That’s just how it is. But by demanding that Republicans get rid of the filibuster, the president sounds like he’s the one folding. Right now, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is standing in the way of SNAP payments. By demanding the GOP dump one of the only bulwarks against left-wing overreach, he’s creating friction in his own party and allowing the media to frame Republicans as the obstructionists.
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The filibuster shouldn’t be this important, but since the Senate abdicated most of its constitutional responsibilities, it’s one of the only tools stopping the institution from turning into the House or, worse, an appendage of the executive branch.
Most of all, we’re a massive and highly diversified nation. And I don’t mean diverse just in a racial sense, but in a geographical and cultural one. We have different ideas about how to live life. If big Blue States endlessly impose their will on the 49% minority through federal power, or the reverse, the republic won’t last long.