Jump to content

Official Nuke the Filibuster Thread


Recommended Posts

If we don't nuke it, the next 2 years will be spent nibbling around the edges and not accomplishing anything consequential. Voters will be disappointed and Republicans will win the midterms. Then they will do everything in their power to harm America to ensure that they win the presidency in 2024. Nuke it Chuck. Nuke it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The idea that the Senate filibuster encourages compromise and debate is bullshit, and I will call people on it every single time.

 

There is a direct correlation between cloture motions filed over the years and surveys on Senate partisanship. The filibuster only encourages obstruction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mean, it sounds good now. Nuke it, spend the next two years revolutionizing the US on multiple fronts.

 

But then you get to watch as the Democrats lose just a couple seats and everything they've accomplished is torn apart, and should there be a GOP President, nothing would stop them from creating the children-caging, impoverished, sick-and-dying privatized fascist theocratic dystopia that they've always dreamed of.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Reputator said:

I mean, it sounds good now. Nuke it, spend the next two years revolutionizing the US on multiple fronts.

 

But then you get to watch as the Democrats lose just a couple seats and everything they've accomplished is torn apart, and should there be a GOP President, nothing would stop them from creating the children-caging, impoverished, sick-and-dying privatized fascist theocratic dystopia that they've always dreamed of.

The gop struggled to overturn the ACA and the filibuster didn't do anything to stop the tax cuts. 

 

The good of keeping it far outweighs the bad

 

Also, if Mitch or whomever needs to get rid of the filibuster to do x, they're gonna get rid of it to do x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Reputator said:

I mean, it sounds good now. Nuke it, spend the next two years revolutionizing the US on multiple fronts.

 

But then you get to watch as the Democrats lose just a couple seats and everything they've accomplished is torn apart, and should there be a GOP President, nothing would stop them from creating the children-caging, impoverished, sick-and-dying privatized fascist theocratic dystopia that they've always dreamed of.

I'm actually fine with them actually passing things through the senate.  It would just be more to show people how dogshit their policies actually are when you can tie something that is hurting someone to an actual vote that their representative cast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Chadatog said:

I'm actually fine with them actually passing things through the senate.  It would just be more to show people how dogshit their policies actually are when you can tie something that is hurting someone to an actual vote that their representative cast.

 

Yeah I agree. It's much harder to take things away through legislation than to put it in place. Look at the ACA, as a good example. The majority if the GOP base hated it (even if they didn't understand it), and the GOP didn't have the guts to pass a clean elimination. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Reputator said:

I mean, it sounds good now. Nuke it, spend the next two years revolutionizing the US on multiple fronts.

 

But then you get to watch as the Democrats lose just a couple seats and everything they've accomplished is torn apart, and should there be a GOP President, nothing would stop them from creating the children-caging, impoverished, sick-and-dying privatized fascist theocratic dystopia that they've always dreamed of.

 

I'm a fan of Ezra Klein, and think he makes one of the better points about eliminating the filibuster, although it may be a bit optimistic in one regard.

 

His position is eliminate the filibuster, and let Americans judge Senate majorities and their respective parties based on their accomplishments. His example is Obamacare. There's a ton of elements of Obamacare that weren't really popular before the ACA passed, but now that the ACA is law, those elements have become key principles in both the Republican and Democratic Party.

 

Without the ACA, you're just making arguments on theoretical policy outcomes, rather than actual policy outcomes. Another good example would be minimum wage. Right now the party positions can be summed up as "$15 minimum wage would improve the lives of millions of people vs. $15 minimum wage would kill small businesses." It's just a dick measuring contest right now.

 

Again, I think it may be a bit optimistic, because I think people would still vote for their party based on ideological reasons rather than policy outcomes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I hear arguments against killing the filibuster I get the impression that they largely boil down to some fear that the US Senate will suddenly adopt the Facebook motto of "move fast and break things," but I don't really think there's much chance of that happening.

 

Other arguments largely boil down to "well, the other guys will be able to pass things when they're in power," and to that I largely say "bring it on!" I want government to be elected on the premise that the democratically elected officials will pass the policies they ran on. Right now I feel like we see so many on the right run on completely empty policy proposals. 2016 was the perfect opportunity for them to pass whatever they wanted, to replace the ACA they so bitterly hated, but they didn't have a better plan, only shallow opposition.

 

If we changed the power structure a little bit and suddenly there was a higher expectation that if you won control of the government you'd actually be able to enact your policies, I think there might be more actual policy debate and more consequences for enacting policies both good and bad. As it stands, I get the impression that most people (myself often included) don't expect many real policies to get enacted, because so little opposition is required to prevent it.

 

The only real issue that I have with making policy easier to implement in general is that we currently have a situation where one party holds wholly outsized influence compared to their voting population, and when they have power they actively seek to prevent or otherwise manipulate the actual democratic process to hold onto power they otherwise might not. Of course, the fixes for that (ending the electoral college, voting rights acts, etc.) would largely come from legislation that wouldn't get passed without ending the filibuster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Chadatog said:

I'm actually fine with them actually passing things through the senate.  It would just be more to show people how dogshit their policies actually are when you can tie something that is hurting someone to an actual vote that their representative cast.

 

Are we really willing to watch things burn down just to make a point? I feel like that's most of what Democrats do.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's like you guys can only think one move ahead. Watching everything burn down is exactly what would happen if the GOP had no fillibuster or a President who vetoed their policies.

 

1 minute ago, Joe said:


Ok I’ll bite: how is watching things burn most of what Democrats do?

 

We have a penchant for subservience. We love getting on our soapboxes and complaining about the state of things but then we're slow to action and let Republicans bend all the rules and run away with all the wins. In the short term it might seem like removing the fillibuster gives us all the power, but with a razor thin majority, that's likely to change the very next midterms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Reputator said:

It's like you guys can only think one move ahead. Watching everything burn down is exactly what would happen if the GOP had no fillibuster or a President who vetoed their policies.


Did you bother to read TwinIon’s post? Because it was really good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, TwinIon said:

When I hear arguments against killing the filibuster I get the impression that they largely boil down to some fear that the US Senate will suddenly adopt the Facebook motto of "move fast and break things," but I don't really think there's much chance of that happening.

 

Other arguments largely boil down to "well, the other guys will be able to pass things when they're in power," and to that I largely say "bring it on!" I want government to be elected on the premise that the democratically elected officials will pass the policies they ran on. Right now I feel like we see so many on the right run on completely empty policy proposals. 2016 was the perfect opportunity for them to pass whatever they wanted, to replace the ACA they so bitterly hated, but they didn't have a better plan, only shallow opposition.

 

If we changed the power structure a little bit and suddenly there was a higher expectation that if you won control of the government you'd actually be able to enact your policies, I think there might be more actual policy debate and more consequences for enacting policies both good and bad. As it stands, I get the impression that most people (myself often included) don't expect many real policies to get enacted, because so little opposition is required to prevent it.

 

The only real issue that I have with making policy easier to implement in general is that we currently have a situation where one party holds wholly outsized influence compared to their voting population, and when they have power they actively seek to prevent or otherwise manipulate the actual democratic process to hold onto power they otherwise might not. Of course, the fixes for that (ending the electoral college, voting rights acts, etc.) would largely come from legislation that wouldn't get passed without ending the filibuster.

 

I agree with this, and I think we’re seeing a dangerous aspect of the endgame of decades of, “hurr big government bad,” thinking, which is that a non-trivial amount of people in Congress have no idea how to fucking govern and only know how to oppose. The result is a cocktail of people who know how but feel bound by norms (Pelosi, Schumer), people with no principles who latch onto whatever will give them the most leverage regardless of their previous history or positions (McConnell, Graham), and a fleet of people whose main qualification is fundraising.

 

This is obviously an oversimplification but something really needs to be done about the notion that one of the things Americans seem most afraid of their government doing is... governing.

 

47 minutes ago, Reputator said:

It's like you guys can only think one move ahead. Watching everything burn down is exactly what would happen if the GOP had no fillibuster or a President who vetoed their policies.

 

 

We have a penchant for subservience. We love getting on our soapboxes and complaining about the state of things but then we're slow to action and let Republicans bend all the rules and run away with all the wins. In the short term it might seem like removing the fillibuster gives us all the power, but with a razor thin majority, that's likely to change the very next midterms.

 

This isn’t thinking only one move ahead, you’re thinking zero moves ahead. “If we do something eventually there will be a response,” should be the ante, not a justification to fold. That something like The Voting Rights act was eventually gutted should absolutely not be a reason to just not do stuff. Enact policies that do right by and are popular with people, and then let people who don’t like that shit campaign against it and try to dismantle it. And let the threat of it being dismantled be something that inspires people to run for elected office.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Reputator said:

I read it. It amounted to "well they didn't take away the ACA, so surely nothing bad will actually happen!"

I'd disagree with that simplification. If I were to distill it to one sentence it would be that I think easing the passage of legislation would be an overall good thing, even though it would mean passage of a lot of stuff I don't like.

 

Right now most of the GOP doesn't even have a policy agenda. Trump didn't run on one. When he did win and they had the ability to pass whatever they wanted they still couldn't get it together. I think it's quite possible that if we re-do 2016 but knew going in there was no filibuster the GOP might actually have written some bills. Maybe they'd have put forward a real ACA alternative. I doubt I'd have liked anything they would have passed, but a democratically elected government should be able to actually govern, and a huge part of that is passing a policy agenda through legislation, but it hardly ever happens now.

 

The way the Georgia runoff was framed, it was basically a choice between a government that maybe accomplishes something vs one that is all but guaranteed to never pass anything. I'd be much happier with a government that tried things more regularly even though that would obviously mean a lot of stuff happening that I disagree with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, osxmatt said:

 

I'm a fan of Ezra Klein, and think he makes one of the better points about eliminating the filibuster, although it may be a bit optimistic in one regard.

 

His position is eliminate the filibuster, and let Americans judge Senate majorities and their respective parties based on their accomplishments. His example is Obamacare. There's a ton of elements of Obamacare that weren't really popular before the ACA passed, but now that the ACA is law, those elements have become key principles in both the Republican and Democratic Party.

 

Without the ACA, you're just making arguments on theoretical policy outcomes, rather than actual policy outcomes. Another good example would be minimum wage. Right now the party positions can be summed up as "$15 minimum wage would improve the lives of millions of people vs. $15 minimum wage would kill small businesses." It's just a dick measuring contest right now.

 

Again, I think it may be a bit optimistic, because I think people would still vote for their party based on ideological reasons rather than policy outcomes.

I agree small businesses need to die off and super corporations should reign supreme!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I'd disagree with that simplification. If I were to distill it to one sentence it would be that I think easing the passage of legislation would be an overall good thing, even though it would mean passage of a lot of stuff I don't like.

 

Right now most of the GOP doesn't even have a policy agenda. Trump didn't run on one. When he did win and they had the ability to pass whatever they wanted they still couldn't get it together. I think it's quite possible that if we re-do 2016 but knew going in there was no filibuster the GOP might actually have written some bills. Maybe they'd have put forward a real ACA alternative. I doubt I'd have liked anything they would have passed, but a democratically elected government should be able to actually govern, and a huge part of that is passing a policy agenda through legislation, but it hardly ever happens now.

 

The way the Georgia runoff was framed, it was basically a choice between a government that maybe accomplishes something vs one that is all but guaranteed to never pass anything. I'd be much happier with a government that tried things more regularly even though that would obviously mean a lot of stuff happening that I disagree with.

 

This is exactly it. Above anything, we need to stop having a completely ineffectual government which is half run by people with no actual plan or desire to accomplish anything that remotely looks like governing. Trump and the whole of the Republican party had a whole decade to and have NEVER presented a healthcare plan to compete with the ACA. Like, I know people suck and Americans have the worst political amnesia imaginable, but there will likely be a time in the future where people may actually start voting on real plans. The younger generations don't watch commercials and skip/tune out ads they see online. It'll be interesting to see how future politicians engage and soak to these generations when the Boomers and earlier Gen X folk die off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The idea that we should keep our broken government the way it is forever because the dumbasses we elect might ruin the nation is uhh... probably a good reason to change it and to educate voters and to reexamine ourselves as a nation. Because that's the worst fucking logic I can possibly imagine to not do anything.

 

Needles hurt, but that pain is no reason not to get your shots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most things are already rigged in the GOP's favor so of course it's in their interest to obstruct change. Since they're so bad at governing, it also always gives them the convenient scape goat of "Well we couldn't get things done because of the damn democrats" (even when that's not true) and no one has any reason to hold their feet to the fire.

 

Fucking get rid of it and let people be held accountable for their policies, good or bad. We're only going to make progress by actually trying things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...