The annus horribilis of 2020 has seamlessly transformed into the annus horribilis of 2021 for conservatives. Sure, COVID-19 lockdowns seem permanently on their way out, thanks in no small part to former President Donald Trump’s vaccine production in Operation Warp Speed. Yet Democratic control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate bodes ill for the country, especially as dangerous ideologies like Marxist critical race theory and transgenderism dominate that party and take hold of mainstream society.
The Democrats are readying a raft of dangerous legislation, from H.R. 1’s attack on state-run elections and election integrity to the Equality Act’s evisceration of religious freedom to Biden’s gargantuan “infrastructure” bill and more. Biden is mulling adding seats to the U.S. Supreme Court and Democrats are demanding the abolition of the filibuster.
It seems the integrity of the U.S. Senate hangs by a thread — a thread of two names, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). Only Manchin and Sinema stand against the deafening tide of leftist demands for Democrats to use their razor-thin majority to foist their partisan agenda on America.
So conservatives should thank our lucky stars that this thread seems made of some rather stiff fibers. I’m hoping it will hold fast, like the thread of Hercules’ life when the Fates try to cut it in the classic Disney film.
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Sinema gave us more hope on Wednesday when she issued a full-throated defense of the filibuster.
“Well, as folks in Arizona know, I’ve long been a supporter of the filibuster because it is a tool that protects the democracy of our nation,” Sinema explained. “Rather than allowing our country to ricochet wildly every two to four years back and forth between policies, the idea of the filibuster was created by those who came before us in the United States Senate to create comity and to encourage Senators to find bipartisanship and work together. And while there are some who don’t believe that bipartisanship is possible, I think that I’m a daily example that bipartisanship is possible.”
Sinema discussed her work with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), to try to find common ground on various issues. She encouraged people to reconsider efforts to ax the filibuster.
“To those who say we must make a choice between the filibuster and X, I say this is a false choice. The reality is that when you have a system that’s not working effectively — and I would think that most would agree that the Senate’s not a particularly well-oiled machine — the way to fix that is to change your behavior, not to eliminate the rules or change the rules, but to change your behavior,” Sinema said.
A reporter asked her why she supports the filibuster when many claim it dates back to the Jim Crow era. Democrats use this talking point to suggest that the filibuster is racist, even though Democrats themselves used the filibuster as recently as last year — in order to block voting on Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) criminal justice reform bill in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
“The filibuster was not created as a tool to accomplish one thing or another. It was created as a tool to bring together members of different parties to find compromise and coalitions,” Sinema responded.
She hearkened back to the Founding Fathers, who explicitly formed the Senate as a body to cool the passions of the House.
“When they created the Senate — with two senators from every state, regardless of population size, with elections staggered every six years, so that only a third of the body is up for election each cycle — it was designed to be a place where you cool the passions of the House, where you work together to find the compromise, and importantly, where you protect the rights of the minority from the majority, regardless of which party is in the majority at the time,” Sinema explained, summing up some of the key logic in The Federalist Papers.
Standing next to Republican Sen. John Cornyn, Democratic @SenatorSinema says the filibuster “protects the democracy of our nation.”
Cornyn voted to filibuster creating an independent commission to examine the 1/6 attack on our democracy. Sinema didn’t vote. pic.twitter.com/zUTE9utzqp
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) June 2, 2021
While segregationist senators did use the filibuster to preserve the status quo, its real inspiration has much more to do with Sinema’s encapsulation of the Founders’ arguments. The filibuster dates back to the first Senate in 1789, although the first exercise of the Senate filibuster occurred in 1837. The filibuster provides a protection for the minority in the Senate, enabling the upper chamber to serve as a check on the passions of the House.
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Sinema’s principled defense of the filibuster should give conservatives hope that at least two Democrats will stand firm and protect the rights of the minority from an increasingly dangerous agenda. Ultimately, conservatives must work hard to take back Congress in 2022.