I hope somebody will point this out to Joe Manchin.

[Jeebo]

If the Democrats don't change the Senate filibuster rules now, the next time the Republicons control the Senate, THEY WILL. It should be obvious to everybody by now that the filibuster's days are numbered, and whichever party is in power when it goes away, that party will benefit.

-- Ron

[uponit7771]

1. K&R, ... and they'll change the filibuster rules quick fast with no fan fair and a nary of protest

... cause few to no one will know about it.

Their give a fuck at the end of the day wont be there and since they control the message they wont pay a big political price

[krawhitham]

2. They JUST had control and they did not get rid of the filibuster

[caraher]

3. Good point, and it's worth figuring out why they didn't

The reason is that the filibuster functions as a tool of obstruction, and the Republicans have no legislative agenda worth mentioning that they need to enact. (Tax cuts, deregulation, packing the courts... Democratic filibusters stop basically none of this when Republicans hold the White House and Senate).

It's a fundamentally reactionary mechanism that works to thwart change, and thus, on balance, serves Republicans better than Democrats.

[StarfishSaver]

6. Exactly

Republicans weren't doing much in the Senate that could have been stopped with a filibuster other than pushing through judges and they had already eliminated the filibuster for judicial nominations.

[Jeebo]

4. But the Democrats almost did.

And they still might. So my point is that the Republicons will see that it ALMOST happened this time, so next time around it probably will, so they (the Republicons) will figure that they'd better go ahead and do it themselves while they are in power and it will benefit them, rather than wait until the next time around when the Democrats are in power and they can do it while it benefits them. Do you see my point? And I wish somebody would argue that point with Joe Manchin. And with Kyrsten Sinema, too.

-- Ron

[StarfishSaver]

5. True

Why I've had it up to here with the "We can't do that because when the Republicans get back in, they may use it against us" handwringing as if Republicans need to take cues from us in order to abuse their power.