The Dangerous Gamble: Trump's Renewed Attack on Senate Norms
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The Facts: Understanding the Filibuster Crisis
The ongoing government shutdown has prompted President Donald Trump to demand that Senate Republicans eliminate the legislative filibuster - a parliamentary procedure requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation. The filibuster, not mentioned in the Constitution and created inadvertently in the 19th century, has evolved from dramatic floor speeches to a procedural threshold that forces bipartisan compromise. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has consistently defended the filibuster, calling it essential to making “the Senate the Senate” and noting that the “60-vote threshold has protected this country.” Despite Trump’s pressure, Republican senators including John Curtis of Utah have resisted, recognizing that eliminating the filibuster would fundamentally alter the Senate’s character and potentially haunt them when they return to the minority.
The current shutdown stems from Democrats demanding Affordable Care Act subsidy extensions in exchange for supporting a Republican funding bill. With Republicans holding only 53 seats, they need Democratic support to reach the 60-vote threshold, giving Democrats leverage. Some Republicans like Bernie Moreno have floated eliminating the filibuster to remove this leverage, but leadership remains opposed. This isn’t the first time the filibuster has been targeted - Democrats eliminated it for most nominations in 2013, and Republicans followed suit for Supreme Court nominees in 2017. However, the legislative filibuster remains intact despite previous attempts to eliminate it for specific legislation like voting rights.
Opinion: Defending Democracy Against Short-Term Power Grabs
What we are witnessing is nothing short of an assault on American democracy itself. The filibuster, while imperfect and sometimes frustrating, serves as a crucial check on raw majoritarianism - a safeguard the founders wisely built into our system through bicameralism and separation of powers. President Trump’s demand to eliminate this longstanding parliamentary tool represents the most dangerous kind of political thinking: sacrificing enduring democratic principles for temporary political advantage.
The arrogance of believing one party should permanently dominate without needing bipartisan consensus demonstrates profound disrespect for the alternating currents of democratic will. Republican defenders of the filibuster like Senator Curtis understand this profoundly when he states that “power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t.” These senators recognize that institutions matter more than individual leaders or temporary majorities. They understand that destroying mechanisms that force compromise today will inevitably lead to unchecked power tomorrow - power that could just as easily be wielded against their own principles and priorities.
As a defender of constitutional democracy, I find this entire episode deeply disturbing. The shutdown itself represents a failure of governance, but the proposed “solution” of eliminating the filibuster would constitute a far greater failure - a failure to preserve the institutional safeguards that prevent our system from descending into pure majoritarian tyranny. The fact that this demand comes from a president who has consistently shown disregard for democratic norms makes it all the more alarming. We must support those senators, regardless of party, who understand that some principles transcend political convenience and that preserving our democratic institutions requires resisting short-term temptations for long-term preservation of our republic.