Image by Gayatri Malhotra.
If Democrats threw out the filibuster today and rapidly passed legislation over the next 8 months as if they gave a damn — as if they were, oh, I don’t know, the Supreme Court — and if they put just what they’re increasing the military budget by into their Build Back Better bill, if they put through with majority votes just those items they were elected on that are favored by significant majorities in the country, they’d have done enough by 6 months from now to not lose those elections. And if they kept going, they’d need never lose an election again. The whole premise of keeping the filibuster around to restrain the Republicans is the plan to go on sucking badly for 6 more months in order to lose — combined with the delusion that Republicans are going to be restrained by something that THEY can and will choose to throw out. The Republicans will certainly plan on never losing an election again. Any elections they can’t win or rig, they can ask the Supreme Court to fix up for them — and hire Al Gore to explain to us that we should sit back and take it.
If the Democrats were not fundamentally committed to sucking, here’s what they might do:
1) abolish Congressional vacations for the next 8 months
2) abolish the filibuster
3) abolish student debt
4) make college free
5) tax billionaires
6) tax quasi-billionaires
7) tax corporations
8) de-fund nuclear weapons
9) pass a major Green New Deal
10) close foreign military bases
11) create enhanced and public Medicare for All
12) restore the minimum wage
13) strip the Supreme Court of major powers assumed by it
14) expand the Supreme Court and fill it with ideal justices just out of law school
15) ban war weapons from individuals
16) ban war weapons from police
17) legislate a universal right to 18th century muskets for members of the National Guard, with no further gun rights for anyone
18) legislate abortion rights
19) ban school prayer
20) ban school sports prayer
21) ban Congressional prayer
22) legislate card-check organizing and ban “right to work” laws
23) legislate paid sick and family leave
24) legislate the inalienable right to vote for all U.S. residents over 16
25) create universal preschool
26) create a decent system of trains
27) create public financing of election campaigns
28) make the test for citizenship possession of a pulse
29) rip down borders
30) abolish weapons sales to foreign governments
31) quadruple non-strings non-military actual humanitarian foreign aid
32) create a department of unarmed nonviolent civil defense
33) ban fracking
34) give back Oklahoma again
35) tax offshoring
36) remove the cap on Social Security taxes and expand Social Security
37) abolish the federal death penalty
38) Decriminalize marijuana
39) Eliminate cash bail and mandatory minimums
40) Ban armed drones, mass surveillance, telemarketing, and Congress Members owning stock
41) Break up high-tech monopolies
42) Make DC and Puerto Rico states
43) Convene hearings at which to hear and learn from nations that handled COVID well
44) Announce a schedule of impeachments of horrendous abusers of power currently and formerly holding high offices in government, including in Congress and on the Supreme Court
45) End the war on Yemen
Do one of those a day for the next 45 days and you’re at mid-August. Then keep going. Make clear that you intend to keep going. Make clear that you’ve decided to copy from Republicans their willingness to act rather than their funders and policies. And then explain to me how the Democrats are doomed to lose the next elections and so had better keep the filibuster in place and rely on Joe Biden vetoes to save the world, as if Biden ever saw something horrible he would veto, as if Biden wouldn’t make a key bipartisan principle out of not vetoing, as if the world could survive simply by slowing the destruction rather than implementing the radical changes required, even if Biden would lift a finger to slow it.