For generations, the filibuster was used as a tool to block progress on racial justice. And in recent years, it’s been used by the far right as a tool to block progress on everything.
I’ve only served one term in the Senate — but I’ve seen what’s happening. We all saw what they did to President Obama. I’ve watched Republicans abuse the rules when they’re out of power, then turn around and blow off the rules when they’re in power.
We saw it happen again just this week. Republicans spent years — years — exploiting the rules to slow down or block President Obama’s mainstream judges and executive nominees. But now that they’re in power, they’re unilaterally changing those rules to speed them up and ram through President Trump’s extremist nominees.
So let me be as clear as I can about this. When Democrats next have power, we should be bold: We are done with two sets of rules — one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats.
And that means when Democrats have the White House again, if Mitch McConnell tries to do what he did to President Obama, and puts small-minded partisanship ahead of solving the massive problems in this country, then we should get rid of the filibuster.
–Elizabeth Warren
Al Sharpton’s National Action Network
Many professional opinionated write about McConnell like he’s some shockingly new, uncouth Republican leader. He doesn’t play fair! Maybe the Warrens of the party are right, and we should fight fire with fire? Mustn’t rush to judgement though, there’s always good, sensible Republicans like McCain, maybe they’ll take back control…
Please. This lesson should have been learned after Newt Gingrich if not earlier. Republican politicians are hypocritical, amoral psychopaths. All the way down, even at the state level. They will never play fair, and they’ll scream with genuine righteous fury whenever our side gives them a well-deserved comeuppance. (I do not include Republican voters in this; some are halfway decent people. But Republican politicians are uniformly horrible individuals.)
For way, way too long, Democrats have been acting like the legend of Neville Chamberlain (as I think you’ve written, the real Chamberlain had very good reason to avoid war as long as possible, since England would have gotten stomped). Placate the enemy, nothing we can do. Well, in this case, there is! The public overwhelmingly supports liberal positions on pretty much everything!
Then you see the press gushing over Beto’s “let’s work together, divisiveness is bad” blather because, you know, he can play rock guitar. Holy moly.
I agree with everything. The only thing that separates Republicans over time in terms of villainy is their starting position. I remember when Reagan was elected and he was every bit as horrifying and Trump. He was also not very popular until he died and the “liberal” media gave him a week-long cock sucking.
As for McCain, other than torture, everything he did was for his own benefit. He voted liberal-ish when he wanted to hurt Bush or Trump. Otherwise, his votes were horrible. And on the issue of torture, that was all about looking good. Even while he was getting plaudits from the media for his vote, he was secretly providing the government with a huge loophole.
I’ve been wondering about voters. What I find most interesting is that demagogues are actually more successful with old people. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see that people are all pretty much the same. When I hear of someone doing some outrageous thing, I assume the story is wrong. And it is 9 out of 10 times. Where I suppose I’ve become more cynical about people is in their ability to fall for the same lie time after time and never learn from it. Maybe I’m worse. But it seems that the natural way to reach old age is to be gently sad about your society, not aggressively outraged at apocryphal stories.