Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

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Little Raven
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Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by Little Raven »

And waves the bloody flag.
Democrats are seizing on this week’s anniversary of the deadly US Capitol insurrection to renew a push for voting rights legislation to safeguard democracy.

Majority leader Chuck Schumer announced on Monday that the body will vote on changing its own rules on or before 17 January, the federal Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday, if Republicans continue to obstruct election reform.

The deadline appears part of a concerted effort to use Thursday’s commemorations, marking a year since a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s election win, to give fresh impetus to the long-stalled legislation.

In a letter to Senate Democrats, Schumer argued that the events of 6 January 2021 are directly linked to a campaign by Republican-led state legislatures to impose voter restriction laws.

“Let me be clear,” the New York senator wrote. “6 January was a symptom of a broader illness – an effort to delegitimise our election process, and the Senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration – they will be the new norm.

“Much like the violent insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol nearly one year ago, Republican officials in states across the country have seized on the former president’s Big Lie about widespread voter fraud to enact anti-democratic legislation and seize control of typically non-partisan election administration functions.”
I can only assume he knows he doesn't have the votes.
/. "She climbed backwards out her
\/ window into Outside Over There."
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El Guapo
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Re: Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by El Guapo »

Good. About time Democrats prioritized this. They're running out of time to protect the 2024 election. I don't know how likely it is that they get both Manchin and Sinema on board, but they have to try. Both because of the critical importance of the issue, and because even if nothing passes, talking about the threat of Republicans stealing the 2024 election will help protect us against it, by better informing the media and public about the danger.
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malchior
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Re: Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by malchior »

Yup - they need to raise awareness even if they can't directly protect. And to be honest direct protection was in doubt to begin with.
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Grifman
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Re: Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by Grifman »

malchior wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 2:38 pm Yup - they need to raise awareness even if they can't directly protect. And to be honest direct protection was in doubt to begin with.
It's political theater, and bad political theater at that, and is just going to paint the Democrats as incompetent losers. They really don't need any more of this kind of take. Get some version of BBB passed first.
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malchior
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Re: Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by malchior »

Bad look or not all they can hope to do is bluster at this point. The chances Manchin comes in from the cold are very low. Not zero but very, very low. There are very few reasons for Manchin to play ball on BBB or voting rights or nearly anything. The only thing they can do is communicate risk. It's far too little but the reality is the Democrats are powerless.
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Carpet_pissr
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Re: Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by Carpet_pissr »

If you're paying enough attention to read about this (beyond just happening to see a headline), I bet you VERY LIKELY know that it's BS. Pretty sure a Venn diagram showing those two groups would nearly overlap completely.

So who's the theater for? The 1, maybe 3% tops? That is so sad.
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El Guapo
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Re: Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by El Guapo »

Carpet_pissr wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 7:26 pm If you're paying enough attention to read about this (beyond just happening to see a headline), I bet you VERY LIKELY know that it's BS. Pretty sure a Venn diagram showing those two groups would nearly overlap completely.

So who's the theater for? The 1, maybe 3% tops? That is so sad.
Well, I would say a couple things:

(1) I'm not holding my breath, but the odds of Sinema and Manchin going along with this aren't zero. They both have an interest in not letting Republicans restrict the electorate to only Republicans, or in allowing them to overturn elections. Even if Manchin is seriously considering switching parties, he's still better off if he still has the possibility of winning reelection as a democrat, because then he has more options (since if he switches parties he'd have to worry about winning a Republican primary which wouldn't be a lock) plus he'd have more leverage in negotiations with McConnell.

And bear in mind that even if Manchin and Sinema go along with allowing the filibuster carve out, they'd both still have unilateral veto power over what actually gets passed, so they can limit it to whatever they want.

And even if you think the odds of something passing is only 5%...I'd absolutely take a 5% chance of protecting our democracy versus zero.

(2) On the audience for this...first there are a *lot* of Democrats who don't understand the danger we're in. I think the polling I've seen is something like 70% of Republicans think our democracy is in danger vs. 30% of democrats. Anything that they can do to nudge that up is good. Second it's very important that mainstream media outlets really understand the danger that we're in.

At the end of the day if Republicans can get the structural power in place to overturn an election (and they're on track to, if they're not there already) the last recourse we have is mass protests. And the odds of being able to organize and sustain those is MUCH higher if the CNN / NBC / WaPo / etc. headlines are "Michigan Legislature Debates Overturning Election Biden Appears to Have Won" instead of "Michigan Legislature Investigates Alleged Election Irregularities". It's also much higher if more democrats are aware of the danger before election day.
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malchior
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Re: Schumer announces plan to change filibuster.

Post by malchior »

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 2:24 am
Carpet_pissr wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 7:26 pm If you're paying enough attention to read about this (beyond just happening to see a headline), I bet you VERY LIKELY know that it's BS. Pretty sure a Venn diagram showing those two groups would nearly overlap completely.

So who's the theater for? The 1, maybe 3% tops? That is so sad.
Well, I would say a couple things:

(1) I'm not holding my breath, but the odds of Sinema and Manchin going along with this aren't zero. They both have an interest in not letting Republicans restrict the electorate to only Republicans, or in allowing them to overturn elections. Even if Manchin is seriously considering switching parties, he's still better off if he still has the possibility of winning reelection as a democrat, because then he has more options (since if he switches parties he'd have to worry about winning a Republican primary which wouldn't be a lock) plus he'd have more leverage in negotiations with McConnell.

And bear in mind that even if Manchin and Sinema go along with allowing the filibuster carve out, they'd both still have unilateral veto power over what actually gets passed, so they can limit it to whatever they want.
Perhaps it is too cynical but my model for this is just that they are extremely corrupt. Neither of them respond to their constituents needs in any way and in Sinema's case she doesn't even talk to them at all. They are the firewall for the oligarchs.
And even if you think the odds of something passing is only 5%...I'd absolutely take a 5% chance of protecting our democracy versus zero.
But it probably is zero. Even in good times, we probably couldn't trust that any one or two people aren't going to be heavily influenced by the donor class or just voting their own interests as in Manchin's case. Exceptions for people like John Cain. But we've seen beneath Manchin's mask. He's not an honorable person. He isn't decent. He isn't acting in good faith. And Sinema is probably just stuffing her pockets by wielding chaos magick.
(2) On the audience for this...first there are a *lot* of Democrats who don't understand the danger we're in. I think the polling I've seen is something like 70% of Republicans think our democracy is in danger vs. 30% of democrats. Anything that they can do to nudge that up is good.
I've seen the same sorts of estimates and the problem is that a lot of folks have been successfully misdirected by waves of media propaganda into not seeing the sleight of hand occurring. Meaning for the combined population a lot of this is noise about the polarizing distraction issues such as voter id and mail in voting. The actual damage is being done when politicians pick who votes for them and who is going to be in charge with certifying elections. It's maddening but America is a civic education nightmare. And if we are honest with ourselves Americans at scale are smooth brains. We might very well be heading for whatever comes next and people won't even notice. They haven't largely noticed the severe degradation that's already occurred.
Second it's very important that mainstream media outlets really understand the danger that we're in.
This is where my cynicism might kick into overdrive but it matches the pattern. I have strong belief that they know. They are willing participants. And the 'they' are the oligarchs who install the editorial leadership who control the consolidated media landscape. They have spent decades consolidating more than 90% of the US media landscape into <checks notes> 5 companies now? The local newspapers, radio, and tv stations have been gutted and looted by vulture venture capitalists. This was a concerted attack that occurred over decades and they've largely succeeded. The only space which is uncontrolled (edit: partially!) is social media and it's a propaganda/misinformation wasteland.
At the end of the day if Republicans can get the structural power in place to overturn an election (and they're on track to, if they're not there already) the last recourse we have is mass protests.
TBH I think they'll much more likely be driven by that social media than traditional media and it's a dice roll at what populist action comes out of it.
And the odds of being able to organize and sustain those is MUCH higher if the CNN / NBC / WaPo / etc. headlines are "Michigan Legislature Debates Overturning Election Biden Appears to Have Won" instead of "Michigan Legislature Investigates Alleged Election Irregularities". It's also much higher if more democrats are aware of the danger before election day.
This is where I wonder how much control the editorial level will have when rubber meets the road. The credulous Chuck Todd's and Chris Cillizza's of the world are going to squarely fall into the 'see no evil/hear no evil but PAY ME' camp. There are a lot of other credible voices who'll speak the truth. If/when the bad stuff happens it won't be some clean story and in that muddiness the people with power will try to influence the outcomes. I'm not 100% sure how it'll play out but concentrated wealth has probably never been better positioned to establish a 'managed democracy' in the United States. They've largely succeeded building out all the foundation. I don't know what'll stop them at this point.
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