It's a sure thing that if Democrats hold firm in filibustering the Gorsuch nomination and the Republican-fascists under Mitch McConnell get rid of the filibuster that Democrats will be blamed for destroying that movie device that gave Jimmy Stewart one of his iconic opportunities. I can hear NPR's rote expressions of world-weary, belt-way sorrow at the passing of an institution even as I type this.
But the fabled filibuster has mostly been used to prevent things like anti-lynching and civil rights laws from being passed. I would love to see a tally of successful uses of the filibuster to judge what has benefited from it most, I'll bet you it's not liberal or even moderately progressive legislation. It was designed to be an obstruction and what mostly gets obstructed is liberal legislation.
The fact is that Republican-fascists have used the filibuster in minority when Democrats held the Senate but that Senate Democrats have not used it when they are in the minority with anything like success. With the racist Republican-fascist decision to turn the first Black president into a non-president, ultimately in denying his last Supreme Court nominee even courtesy visits, never mind a hearing, they're the ones who removed any meaning in Senate rules or even their oath to follow the Constitution.
Democrats will find times they wish they hadn't stood firm on this but, for their purposes, the filibuster was lost a long time ago. If they never tried using it, it was never there anyway. Better to face facts and make Republican-fascists own Gorsuch and his depraved hostility to the non-rich, from the phony moderates like Susan Collins to the hard-right racist fascists which are, in fact, most of the Senate Republicans now.
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