McConnell begs to keep his vile weapon of bullying as minority leader

 The shamelessness never ends:

[#Moscow Mitch McConnell],now the minority leader, is holding up the basic organizing agreement required at the beginning of each new Senate. He’s insisting that Democrats pledge to leave the legislative filibuster intact over the next two years, or else he won’t let the resolution pass — and without it, the Senate’s work won’t get done, and the majority-party Democrats won’t even be able to take over as chairs of Senate committees. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is asking for the same deal that the parties worked out in 2001 under similar circumstances. McConnell hasn’t budged, more than two weeks after Democrats clinched the last of their 50 Senate seats in two special elections in Georgia and two days after the new senators and new Vice President Kamala Harris, the tie-breaker, took office.

The odd thing is that what McConnell is doing is, as Congress scholar Sarah Binder points out, “not a credible commitment.” That is, whatever the Democrats say now — and remember, they are not currently threatening to eliminate the filibuster — it simply won’t be binding on them over the course of the next two years. At the same time, McConnell doesn’t appear to be offering anything in return for the Democrats’ pledge, such as a reciprocal promise to limit use of the filibuster, which gives the minority the power to stop most legislation that can’t command 60 votes. He simply wants Democrats to agree to play by his rules, even if that means passing nothing for the next two years. 

While no one expected the turtle to stop threatening democracy or actually let Democrats govern and clean up his seditious party's incredible, mind-blowing mess of corruption and cruelty, this is a new low. As everyone should remember, #Moscow Mitch used the filibuster as a regular weapon of business during his last tenure as Minority Leader, stymying important measures meant to rescue the economy and the country after Dubya broke it last time. And he was utterly unapologetic and shameless in doing so. He was equally shameless in crushing the Democrats' use of the filibuster when stealing Merrick Garland's seat on the Supreme Court. I believe the Jews call that Chutzpah but I don't think I'm qualified to use that term. 

McConnell should be in a position to demand nothing. With several members of his caucus courting expulsion for supporting and aiding a violent insurrection just over two weeks ago, logic would dictate that you sit down and shut up. But this is the most anti-democratic Senator in modern American history, who despite looking like he can barely push open a door by himself, is used to throwing around incredible power to disrupt, obstruct, and steal anything that furthers the republican agenda.

The framing in this Bloomberg article is important and does seem to indicate a shift, at least in the short term, of how mainstream media are going to react to republican BS. It only took economic collapse, a pandemic, and violent insurrection to get this news outlets off their asses to see the danger in pandering to them but we liberals and Democrats have to support it while we can. Saying "holding up the basic organizing agreement" and "insisting" that the majority bend to his will to leave the vile weapon of slavery and segregation intact is a major change in the way bullying has been written about in recent years. 

Thankfully Chuck Schumer has not caved, calling the demand "unacceptable", so we should be thankful for that. How long before he backslides is anyone's guess. But this episode shows that doughfacedonny may be gone, but the virus of authoritarianism never dies. It will take eternal vigilance to defend democracy.