A harsh truth lots of people are whistling past: keeping the filibuster in place, as Manchin demands, means no big legislation. Period. There is no major Dem legislation in the world, in the universe, in conceptual space, for which 10 GOP senators would cross the aisle. NONE.
If the filibuster stays, Dems will be confined to what they can squeeze through budget reconciliation. No democracy reform, no climate bill, no health care bill. And voters will end up blaming Biden for gridlock. It sucks, but if you don't like it, talk to Manchin.
The only question mark here is how committed Manchin is to keeping the filibuster. There's *some* possibility that he, like some other D senators, is just giving Rs a chance. If they filibuster more Covid aid or democracy reform, perhaps Manchin will say, "ah, we have no choice."
But I doubt it. A 50-50 Senate with the filibuster in place is perfectly, exquisitely constructed to make Manchin extremely important & powerful without exposing him to much risk. He's loving it.
Yes, I forgot, the OTHER question mark is the possibility of filibuster "reform" rather than repeal -- i.e., once again requiring a "talking filibuster," which would at least inconvenience Rs. I really have no sense of where Manchin & other right-leaning Ds stand on this.
A final thought for this thread: given Ds' whisper-thin majority & Rs' enduring structural advantage in the Senate, there is a legitimate debate to be had about the wisdom of killing the filibuster. The Trump trifecta of 2017 could easily happen again. What would Rs do then?
On balance, I still favor repealing or reforming the filibuster, but let's not ignore that we're playing with fire -- "fire" meaning a crypto-authoritarian reactionary party that reliably uses every bit of power available to it to the maximum extent.
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