How do you know when you’ve been in Washington too long? When you stop doing the people’s business and start trotting out nerdy terms like “paid influencer ecosystem,” that’s when.

Fellow Patriots, I give you Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the living embodiment of the do-nothing, go-along, get-along Swamp rat. It’s been well over two weeks since our supposed Senate leader promised a vote on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, and we’re still waiting. And waiting.

Fifty Senate Republicans who say they support the bill are also waiting. Beyond that, we’re waiting for Thune to force the Democrats to demonstrate the courage of their convictions — to scuttle this wildly popular voting-integrity legislation the old-fashioned way, via the real filibuster, the talking filibuster.

Yesterday, as the Washington Examiner reports, Thune tsk-tsked the heat he’s been feeling from conservatives over his deliberate slow-walking of the SAVE Act, chalking it up to a “paid influencer ecosystem,” whatever the heck that is.

“Having studied it, researched it pretty thoroughly,” droned Thune, “you have to show me how, in the end, it prevails and succeeds. Because I think what has been promised out there is that it would actually, in the end, get an outcome, and I find it very hard to see that based on actual past experience.”

Blah, blah, blah. Is Thune really afraid of facing a barrage of amendments and procedural votes from the Democrats? Because if he is, he ought to resign as leader and hand over the duties to someone with a spine and a set of onions.

Thune says he can’t “guarantee” a particular outcome, but that’s a straw man. No one is demanding a particular outcome. What we’re demanding is action. We’re demanding that the Republicans fight tooth and nail for this indisputably good and popular and critical legislation.

Think about it: In a republic, nothing is more critical than free, fair, honest, and trustworthy elections. And the SAVE Act checks those boxes by requiring voters to prove their citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections and to show a photo ID before casting a ballot. These two measures are wildly popular with the American people. According to left-leaning Pew Research, photo ID enjoys 95% support from Republicans and 71% support from Democrats. And it’s not just some outlier from Pew. A recent Fox News poll found that 84% of respondents favor a valid photo ID as proof of citizenship before voting. And Gallup says 84% of Americans favor photo ID.

As CNN data guru Harry Enten puts it, “The bottom line is this: Voter ID is NOT controversial in this country. A photo ID to vote is NOT controversial in this country. It is not controversial by party, and it is not controversial by race. The vast majority of Americans agree.”

But still, Thune resists: “What I’ve said before is, you have to have unified support, not only in support of the ultimate goal, which is the SAVE America Act, but on the process to be able to defeat amendments that would undo the legislation in the first place. And it is a — we can’t find a piece of legislation in history that’s been passed that way.”

Not a single piece of legislation in history? Thune must’ve flunked history. Because as Thune’s fellow senator, Utah’s Mike Lee, points out, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was ultimately passed despite an honest-to-goodness 14-hour filibuster by former Klansman and longtime Democrat Robert Byrd.

Indeed, we should rebrand this legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 2026. Or maybe the Voting Rights Act of 2026. And we should force the Democrats to oppose it.

Now, it’s certainly true that Senate Democrats might ultimately scuttle the SAVE Act by way of an old-fashioned filibuster. Maybe, as my colleague Nate Jackson suggests, some true-believing Democrat will fasten on an extra-absorbent pair of Depends and have at it. (Looking at you, Spartacus.)

But this much is also certainly true: The SAVE Act will never pass if Leader Thune simply sits there with his thumb in his mouth and his booger finger jammed knuckle-deep into his nose — which is precisely what he’s doing now.

Heck, while Thune has been dragging his feet in DC, the good citizens of his home state of South Dakota passed their own version of the SAVE Act.

President Donald Trump, whose political instincts are nearly always perfect, might’ve gotten it wrong yesterday when he said at the House GOP’s annual issues conference in Florida that passing the SAVE Act “will guarantee the midterms.” He added, “If you don’t get it, big trouble.”

Again, I think Trump’s political instincts are exquisite, but I think the way you apply maximum pressure to the Democrats is to refrain from making this a partisan issue. Instead, we on the Right should continually hammer this legislation as having overwhelming bipartisan support.

I smell a rat in all this, though. And the rat’s name is Mitch McConnell. In recent days, Trump and his fellow Republicans have accused the ancient establishmentarian of gumming up the works in the Senate. McConnell’s Trump derangement is no secret, nor is his senatorial tutelage over the years of … John Thune.

PJ Media’s Matt Margolis puts it bluntly: “Is John Thune screwing over our country?”

Don’t get me wrong. During normal times, I’m thrilled to tell members of The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body™ to just sit around and harrumph every once in a while. After all, if they’re not passing legislation, it means they’re not making mischief, and they’re not making our federal government any bigger. Don’t just do something; stand there! and all that.

These aren’t normal times, though. What we have in the SAVE Act is a piece of legislation that, if passed, will subordinate the Democrats to the Rule of Law and make it much harder for them to cheat in federal elections. And that’s why they oppose the SAVE Act.

John Thune needs to stop whining about some imaginary “paid influencer ecosystem” and force a real filibuster. And he needs to do it most ricky-tick.

Or his fellow Senate Republicans need to find a new leader.