Ending the filibuster is critical. And only Liz Warren supports ending it.

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8. Thank you! This is all well explained by Beutler in the article.

What these senators mean is that for all the broad left’s justified alarm about the brittleness of our democracy, and the hardening of minority rule in America, 41 out of 100 senators, representing much less than 41 percent of the U.S. population, should be allowed to doom their ambitions. Even a Senate that could reliably pass legislation with 51 votes would still not be a majoritarian institution. The senators from the 25 smallest states would still have as much power as the senators from the 25 largest states, and because of how our population is sorted, the Senate would still allow a minority of the country, through their elected representatives, to hobble the progressive agenda.

Still, abolishing the filibuster would at least give the next Democratic president a fighting chance to govern. It would also strike a blow for core democratic principles liberals claim to stand for, bringing the country closer to a one-person, one vote ideal. Democrats who support its abolition could appeal to voters not just on the basis of policy checklists and anti-Trump sentiment, but as tribunes for a more responsive democracy. The problem is that many Democratic senators seem to believe that this would be bad. And unless that changes, the primary will be less a contest to determine which ideas a unified Democratic government might enact than a grand but meaningless celebration of liberal empowerment. A laboratory simulation to determine where consensus among Democratic base voters lies, before that consensus gets dashed upon the shoals of Republican obstruction.

As these candidates have staked out their positions, Mitch McConnell has constructed a fine-tuned machine for confirming right-wing judges who, left to their own devices, will be shaping life in America for decades to come. President Trump is assembling a committee of climate-change deniers to dispute the consensus that global warming threatens national and global security. The last five years have been the hottest five years in recorded history. And nothing of substance can pass the Senate with less than 60 votes.

There is a famous New Yorker cartoon that depicts three children and a grown man huddled in a post-apocalyptic outpost around a campfire wearing tattered clothing, and the caption reads, “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.” It’s a perfect satire of the brutal myopia of corporate capitalism, but it could be easily refashioned into commentary about the absurdity of Democratic politics. “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But would it really have been worth saving if it meant a majority of legislators could make laws in America?”

The most frustrating thing about this whistling past the graveyard isn’t that it places all of civilization at risk. It is possible (though terrifying) to imagine us muddling through the climate crisis with a combination of clever legislating, regulation, innovation, and waste, while leaving the filibuster intact. What makes that thought truly bewildering is the hollowness it reveals. The poverty of ambition, the limp resistance, the fear of democratic accountability, the willingness to let year after year of right-wing abuse go unanswered. Whether driven by cynicism or delusion, the idea is that Democrats should claw their way back to power by inflaming the righteous and passionate Trump opposition with false promises, and then hope their disappointed voters will blame Republicans for the ensuing squander.