Thread by @AJentleson

With respect to Bruce, the thing about Madison is that you have to follow his entire thought. A few lines up, he calls majority rule "the fundamental principle of republican Government." He would lay out both sides, then come down firmly for majority rule. loc.gov/resource/mjm.0…

https://twitter.com/BruceLesley/status/1315767638342144000

At the Constitutional Convention, Madison argued for majority rule in the Senate and against giving states the same number of senators. Remember this next time someone throws Madison at you: he wanted the Senate to be majority rule *and* proportional by population like the House.

That quote ^^ is Madison at the Constitutional Convention arguing against the Great Compromise: a bicameral Congress with representation in the House proportional by population but equal in the Senate. Madison decried equal representation for states in the Senate as "injustice."

At this point people say "we can play the Framers game all day" or somesuch but there's no ambiguity here. The Framers designed the Senate to be majority rule. Period, end of story. This is not a matter of interpretation, it's a fact. It was majority rule for more than a century.

The supermajority threshold came into existence not because the Framers wanted it that way, but because white supremacist senators saw their power threatened and needed a way to systematically overturn the will of the majority. That's how the filibuster we know today was born.

It's critical to disentangle the filibuster from the idea of the Senate as the more thoughtful chamber. That's not why the filibuster was invented nor is it the function it serves today, as it empowers reactionary white conservatives to impose their will on the diverse majority.