Nuke the filibuster (redux)
The Big Anon has commented: “As for Trump, I have lost interest in him. I find nothing in him.” And also: “As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve lost all interest in President Trump. I do not think he is a wise person.” The president’s latest tirade underscores the Big Anon’s point and I’m moving in the same direction. All the shouting, cursing, ranting, threatening, bellicosity, flip-flopping and TACO stuff is wearing me down. I don’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome. I have Trump Fatigue Syndrome.
The president is back on his kill-the-filibuster rampage. In a pair of late-night posts on Truth Social, he wrote: “It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” And: “Well, now WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN.'”
He went on: “If Senate Republicans don’t TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, the Dumocrats will, and I will be, despite how well our Party is doing, the last Republican President. The Dumocrats will vote in Puerto Rico (4% Republican Vote), and Washington, D.C. (3% Republican Vote), pick up 4 Senators, 8 Congressmen/women, tremendous numbers of Popular and Electoral College Votes and, importantly, control the Voting Mechanisms and Systems, both Legal and otherwise, throughout the United States. It will be impossible for Republicans to ever win an Election again. In other words, it will be THE END OF AMERICA! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Excuse me? As per usual, the president is out of control. This is (pardon me) dumb and ranks right up there with his pronouncements on trade. For some reason, the president has pushed all his chips into the middle of the table to save the SAVE Act. I won’t burden you with another analysis of the bill, but the president is assuming that if the filibuster went away, the act would pass. He’s wrong. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell and Thom Tillis have all openly opposed it. So if only one more republican – Rand Paul – joined them the bill would not pass. Trump doesn’t have the votes. The president is obviously math-challenged.
What’s more, the democrats are playing the “please don’t throw me in the briar patch” game. They act as if they oppose ending the filibuster, when in fact they’re cheering Trump on. The democrats know, and Senate republicans know too, that without the filibuster, the next time democrats hold the trifecta of House, Senate and presidency, they’ll enact everything Trump warns about. Why can’t the president see this? Killing the filibuster now just to pass the SAVE Act would bring about the very future he’s predicting: statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, repeal of the SAVE Act and democratic control of the voting systems.
Senate republicans understand this, and most will defy the president on it. Majority Leader John Thune has said as much: “At some point, Democrats may try and steal the car, but we’re not going to hand them the keys. We would enable all the crazy stuff they would do, whether it’s adding Puerto Rico and D.C. as states, whether it’s federalizing elections, or packing the Supreme Court.”
So why does the president want to nuke the filibuster. It is one of the few instruments that encourage bipartisanism. Please tell me the president isn’t this stupid.
