The nation just experienced an historically long federal government shutdown. It cost Americans billions of dollars, disrupted services, and ended without any tangible results for the Democrats, who forced it.
President Trump has called repeatedly for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the GOP caucus to end the filibuster. The president wants his agenda acted on swiftly, and for the sake of the nation, he’s right. Yet, a dozen-plus Republicans have balked. They’ve balked because they’re living with the old politics – the old ways of operating the Senate. But the old politics are dead.
When Democrats had a majority in 2021, they came within a hair of ending the filibuster. But for the efforts of former Democrat senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), they would have opened the dam to radical changes impacting our election system, economy, and much else. Manchin and Sinema were practically run out of their offices by their fellow Democrats. The next time Democrats control the Senate – and that could be as soon as 2027, following the midterm elections – they’ll move to abolish the filibuster. They’ll push a far more radical agenda because the energy is on the left.
Then what? Then they’ll renew the push to enact their 2021 agenda and worse. Back then, House Democrats passed the “For the People Act.” Had this radical measure passed the Senate, it would have “expanded early voting, automatic voter registration, restored voting rights to felons, limited gerrymandering, and imposed new disclosure rules on campaign donations.”
That was for starters. One more example. The “Build Back Better Act” was a gargantuan $3.5 trillion spending measure that “included universal pre-K, expanded Medicare benefits (dental, vision, hearing), paid family leave, child tax credit expansion, housing aid, and clean energy investments. A full version required filibuster elimination, as it exceeded reconciliation limits; a scaled-back iteration passed in 2022 as the Inflation Reduction Act.” Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act spent money on an economic stimulus that wasn’t needed. It caused the inflation that stripped Americans of their buying power. It was a disaster enough.
This nation is at a crossroads. President Trump has a small window to reset the country’s course. We have a chance to be a more prosperous, freer, and decent society or we can spin off into the dystopian world that Democrats and the left are striving to create. Open borders will return, police will be prevented from doing their jobs, and Uncle Sam will spend us into a bona fide fiscal crisis. And expect limits on free speech the likes we’ve never seen on these shores.
Is all that an exaggeration? Not a bit, unless like Senate Republicans, you want to deny that only two maverick Senate Democrats in 2021 staved off ending the filibuster, thereby protecting the country from woes most of us can’t imagine. Republicans need to end the filibuster before the Democrats do to enact measures that set the nation on a healthier course.
President Trump is right. The next time, Senate Democrats won’t fire and miss.