Today is the second day of the third Democratic trifecta of my life. President Biden is planning on sign the executive orders he can to fix most of the damage Trump did through executive orders, which is exactly what President Biden should be doing this week.
Soon eyes will turn across the lawn to the Capitol Building where the House is going to be working on passing Biden’s proposed bills which require Congressional approval in order to pass.
Then the bills are going to be sent across the building to the Senate, which is where our story really begins. With only 50 Democrats in the Senate even after all of the carnage of the last year, we are in desperate times, and desperate times call for desperate measures. The probability of the filibuster not being used by Republicans to block President Biden’s legislation is 0, and any idea that they will suddenly come to Jesus is absolutely naive.
In order to pass President Biden’s legislation to end this epidemic and save our economy, we need to do the nuclear option to remove the filibuster. I can see no other realistic path forward which doesn’t end with Mitch McConnell supporting a filibuster to block President Biden’s every move.
We have been through this before in 2009 and 2010 when President Obama proposed a wide suite of legislation and it got bogged down in the Senate when the Democrats had an even larger majority than today. Mitch McConnell is still the leader of Republicans in the Senate, and given how his strategy was successful in blocking Democrats in order to tire out their base in 2010, he has absolutely no incentive and has shown absolutely no sign of changing his behavior any time soon. The rules of the game are the same, making government dysfunctional, dropping turnout among Democrats low enough that Republicans can win the midterm, and they are in power again. It worked in 1994. It worked in 2010. We must make sure it does not work in 2022.
The Nuclear Option, the complete absolute repeal of the filibuster from the Senate rules will completely disarm Senator McConnell, making him just another Senator. This will allow Democrats to have the most productive congress since 1965-1969. The only way to make Senator McConnell an average Senator is to abolish the filibuster.
So, the first issue will be whether this will create an escalation? I don’t believe so. This is merely moving the Senate back to how it worked internally when our nation was founded, where a simple majority is enough to pass a bill. This is how functional democracies are designed. This is how every state legislature works as far as I am aware, and how the House works. The Senate is out of the norm on this issue, and it makes our entire government break down on a regular basis. Americans need to have a government which works for us, and we won’t have a government as functional as we need until the filibuster is abolished.
There will be reluctance to this by some who are concerned that if and when the Republicans take back congress that they can use this change against us.
So, first if we look at the 2022 maps we will see that there are no significant pickups for Republicans but several good chances for Democrats,
Democrats have easy pickups in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with potential pickups in North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio. Republicans might be able to pickup seats in Arizona and Georgia potentially. But if Democrats continue the incredible organizing in those two states, the probability of Republicans taking those two states back goes down significantly. Basically, the 2022 Senate maps favor Democrats. In order to maximize our chances in 2022 we need to make sure that Democrats will get mobilized to vote. The easiest way to do this is show over the next 6 months that the Democrats will deliver.
The 2024 Senate map doesn’t have any very easy pickups for either party, with one potential pickup in Florida for the Democrats. West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio are potentially at risk, but the other states are safe.
If Senate Democrats give Americans a good reason to vote however, the odds will turn in favor for the Democrats like they did in 1966. They can do this if they abolish the filibuster.
If Senate Democrats fail to deliver this session, turnout will drop, Republicans might pickup seats in both chambers, and this will be a wasted opportunity.
If Senate Democrats deliver real progress which makes American lives better, we expand our majority in the House, and gain seats in the Senate, we can bring Texas into play by mobilizing its Hispanic population, we can mobilize African Americans in other Southern States like was done in Georgia by so many amazing activists, and then the 2020s can be the decade when America really starts to deal with systemic problems which our nation has had for centuries.
This future starts with the Senate Democrats abolishing the filibuster and ending this epidemic as soon as possible.
Democrats have the governorships in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, and Nevada. We are not going to see the same level of gerrymandering we saw after the 2010 census. If Democrats mobilize their voters, the House is safe. Even in the chance that the Senate becomes controlled by Republicans, they can’t do a lot without the House or the Presidency.
The Nuclear Option will mobilize Democratic voters, and the Republicans will need to become less extreme if they are ever to win again. If Democratic Senators deliver and we can make pickups over the next 2 election cycles then the Senate will lean Democratic. I don’t see any reason to fear a Republican Trifecta if Democrats show that they are willing to lead.
If Democrats are able to keep government and things improve, Fox News will have less fuel to add to their fire, and some of their viewership will eventually be forced to see something I like to call reality.
If we choose to be fearful and timid and we do not move on the filibuster now, we will get less passed than we should. The consequence will again be a drop in turnout among Democrats, and the possibility of Republicans taking the Senate is real. Fear truly is the path to total obliteration.
However… If President Biden can match his excellent executive orders with excellent laws passed by Congress then the Presidency will be leaning Democratic for the foreseeable future. If he uses his power to enforce our already existing voting rights laws across the country, then no one like Trump will be able to win again if people are able to vote.
If we abolish the filibuster and pass bold legislation to solve the very real problems America faces, the Democrats will likely control government for at least the next 10 years, forcing the Republican Party to abandon the policies of Richard Nixon and Donald Trump.
History is very clear. Democrats can either deliver or be defeated.
The time for bold action is now.
Abolish the filibuster.