Play it out: Republicans regain control of the WH and Congress. There's a bill they want to pass that has 50+ votes in the Senate but not 60. Does anyone really think that McConnell will let Dems filibuster it and just throw up his hands? Or will he nuke the filibuster himself?
https://twitter.com/mrbenwexler/status/1367333536752046082
Not an idle wager. Preserving the filibuster now in the hopes of using it later means giving up on issues like voting rights which are necessary to save our democracy. Is it worth sacrificing issues of that importance in the hopes that McConnell will let Dems keep the filibuster?
A few answers to this. First, wait and find out! Dems would quite literally be betting the fate of our democracy on the *hope* that McConnell decides to let Dems keep the filibuster. Giving up on voting rights while crossing your fingers that he keeps it is perhaps shortsighted.
https://twitter.com/ShannonFreshour/status/1367502582915223562
Second, the fact that McConnell can get much of what he wants through reconciliation and the courts shows how the filibuster distributes power asymmetrically to conservatives. Mcconnell can get what he wants with the filibuster in place, but Democrats cannot. The line won't hold.
Third, not only can McConnell get tax cuts through reconciliation and rollbacks/deregulation through the courts, he can use the filibuster to manufacture gridlock, thereby furthering the conservative case that government is broken and incapable of solving the challenges we face.
It's not a parlor game. The costs of keeping the filibuster are enormous - as @RonBrownstein wrote, the fate of our democracy hinges on it. Giving up on voting rights in the *hopes* that McConnell will let us use the filibuster later seems like a bad bet. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
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