A LESSON IN 21ST CENTURY POLITICS FOR DEMOCRATS

A few words of advice to my fellow Democrats:

You have the levers of power.   But you do not appear to either appreciate what they are, or if you do, have the willingness to use them for good.

For instance:  the issue du jour is the Republicans' abuse of the Senate filibuster and the opposition of two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema, to ending it.     And you appear to be powerless to get federal voting rights bills passed to prevent the state Republican parties from gerrymandering Congressional districts, suppressing Democratic voters, and even stealing the 2022 and 2024 elections by allowing elections to be overturned by state legislatures and judges under the fig leaf of non-existent "voter fraud."    

Here's the strategies you should use:    first, embrace the filibuster, but bring it back with all of its antiquated, Frank Capra "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" charms.   Start by passing stand alone very narrow single issue bills one at a time out of the House, where Democratic discipline exists.   Make the first bill a straightforward  renewal of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013.   But make the Act- which requires  preclearance approval by the Justice Department whenever any governmental entity in any state- the legislature, county, or municipal governments or agents of them- enacts any laws, rules, or actions that can negatively impact minority voting- applicable to all 50 states.  And make it retroactive.   Not a single one of the odious new Republican spawned proposed laws in any state could have passed muster under Section 5.   Then let Republicans stand up and argue 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Senate floor, as to why a law the Senate voted to re-enact unanimously in 2006 with some of the same senators in that chamber- Grassley, McConnell, Graham, and others voting for it- should not even be allowed to come up for a vote in the Senate.    And the House should pass single issue legislation like this and send each bill to the Senate week after week, breaking up the current voting rights bills and infrastructure bills into their component parts.

Second:  use the power of the purse.    Tie a tax the Republicans want to end to a public good that will scorch them if they oppose it.  For instance, for the past 20 years Republicans  have been trying to kill the estate tax for multimillionaires and billionaires, even going so far as to try to re-label it as the "death tax" while falsely claiming that the tax- which has a minimum threshold of over ten million dollars-  wipes out family farms and small businesses.     The legislation should take every dollar received in tax from the estates of dead millionaires and billionaires and dedicate the money to providing health insurance and college tuition for the children of disabled and deceased veterans who are Purple Heart recipients.     Imagine for one moment a Republican standing in the Senate well and arguing  that Congress should protect the drone offspring of billionaires from having their dead daddy's estate help children of service members who were injured or killed serving their country.      Make the law as clean, simple and easy to understand as possible.     

There are any number of possible proposals like this, and in every case, let the Republicans filibuster to their hearts' content.   Put them on television, featuring them in ads in their home states.    Do it over and over with hugely popular initiatives that no sane person would oppose-  which in 2021 pretty much sums up the entire Democratic agenda.   After all,  who other than radical Republicans would oppose allowing people to vote safely and easily, to get access to affordable health insurance, to have clean air and water,  to get jobs, to go to decent schools, to have safe and repaired roads, bridges, tunnels and electrical grids?

But for goodness sakes Democrats:   please start thinking creatively.   Think outside the box.    If a Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, or any other Democrat opposes ending the filibuster, give them a new reason every week to realize the folly of their foolish adherence to a Senate rule that began by accident in 1806 when the rule book was accidentally re-written without a provision for ending debate.  A rule which has mainly been utilized in the last hundred years by segregationists to oppose civil rights legislation.   A rule which has been repeatedly abused  in the last dozen years by the Republican Party and Kentucky minority leader Senator Mitch McConnell in a brazen, overt attempt to stymie every Democratic initiative, no matter how worthy, in the hope that if the Republicans can cause the government and country to fail, then Democrats will be blamed for the massive dysfunction.     And if we let them succeed in wrecking this country when we have the tools to prevent it, that would be a tragedy.  

 Let's not.