The Patriot Post® · The Filibuster Busters

The Democrats have come up with some pretty laughable excuses for why they want to get rid of the Senate filibuster, but their latest is a real gem: The filibuster must be done away with because it’s racist. With leftists seeing racism in everything from what we watch on television to what we buy at the grocery store, it was only a matter of time until the parliamentary procedure of our government would be considered racist, too, though that’s especially rich coming from Democrats.

As part of the Democrats’ strategy to do away with the filibuster, they have labeled it everything from “a mockery of democracy” to “a weapon of mass obstruction.” We’ve known since before the 2020 election that the filibuster was on the chopping block if the Democrats won control of the Senate. But labeling it a racist procedure is hypocritical in the extreme.

Massachusetts Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren has been one of the most vocal about the so-called racist filibuster. “The filibuster has deep roots in racism, and it should not be permitted to serve that function, or to create a veto for the minority,” Warren said last week. “In a democracy, it’s majority rules.” (Fact-check: The filibuster isn’t racist, and we’re a republic.)

But what about all that Democrat lip service about being concerned for minorities? Oh well. Do whatever you gotta do on your path to absolute power. Warren would know; she owes her whole political career to playing the race card.

And she’s not the only one screaming racism. The media has taken up the faux battle cry. CNN, USA Today, and The Atlantic, just to name a few, have equated the filibuster with racism in op-eds masquerading as manufactured news stories.

The “Reverend” Al Sharpton never fails to see “racist” bogeymen, either. “The pressure that we are going to put on [Senators Kyrsten] Sinema and [Joe] Manchin is calling [the filibuster] racist and saying that they are, in effect, supporting racism,” Sharpton said. “Why would they be wedded to something that has those results? Their voters need to know that.”

Someone put it on Joe Biden’s cue cards in his first press conference too. He dutifully read from the script, saying the filibuster is “a relic of the Jim Crow era.”

By the way, Warren may see the filibuster as racist now, but she certainly had no problem filibustering Republican Senator Tim Scott’s police reform bill in 2019. So, going by Warren’s rationale, since Scott is black, does that mean that Warren is racist, too? Don’t be silly. Only white Republicans can be racist.

Scott weighed in on the flip-flopping from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in particular. “Here’s what we know about the Democrats,” Scott said. “They were for the filibuster before they were against the filibuster. I keep asking myself, ‘Will the real Chuck Schumer please stand up?’ Is it the one who was for the filibuster or is it the new one who is now against filibuster?” Democrats, he added, “use the word ‘racist’ whenever they are trying to scare people into their corner.”

Nevertheless, let’s not forget the sordid history of Democrats and the filibuster. If the filibuster has any racist connotation attached to its practice, it is the so-called Party of the People that’s to blame. Democrats wielded the filibuster like a cudgel during the 1940s, ‘50s, and '60s to prevent civil rights legislation from passing the Senate. They did not want to see an end to their political dominance in the South, a dominance that was maintained by continuous violent suppression of blacks for a hundred years after the Civil War.

So-called recent compromises to dial back the filibuster offered by Senator Dick Durbin and President Joe Biden are no compromises at all and should not even be entertained by Republicans. Democrats aim to wipe out the filibuster, then propose merely to neuter it and expect to be awarded for being magnanimous. It’s a time-honored tactic of hard-nosed politics, and the GOP shouldn’t fall for it.

Let no one be confused. The real reason for getting rid of the filibuster is to remove one of the final procedural roadblocks standing in the way of Democrats ramming their leftist agenda through the 50-50 Senate. Fed up to the gills with our republican form of government, the Left is doing what it does best — bending and breaking all the rules that stand in its path to converting America into a socialist “paradise.”

(Updated.)