Tuesday, March 16, 2021

The elephant in the room

       As anyone who follows politics knows, the next few months will be key to the question of how America will be governed in the next few decades of indeed if the nation will be governed at all.  We are at a crossroads and reform or abolition of the filibuster in the Senate will determine which road we take.

    Mitch McConnell and his merry band of nihilists have used the latest iteration of the filibuster to basically throw sand in the gears of government for the last 10 years or more.  From choking the Obama administrations attempts to alleviate the Great Recession to making a mockery of the idea of the chamber as the greatest deliberative body on earth, the GOP has governed, if you can call it that, with the interests of the .01% uppermost in their minds.  It directly paved the way for an ignorant mountebank to become president and nearly destroy what is left of our democracy.

    Democrats have a chance to make the Senate work again as a majoritarian governing body.   They just need to reform the filibuster or abolish it.   Reform would seem the most doable option considering the opposition of Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema to its demise.   Making the GOP publicly own its obstruction of popular legislation from gun control to infrastructure funding will inform the vast majority  of Americans as to who is causing government inaction.  Even partisan Republican voters should see the mendacity which is all that is left to the party which has given up the idea of legislating for the common good.  

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