Jon Chait thinks Republicans are following an inevitably disastrous long-term electoral strategy because they’ve given up on their future and just want to win two more years in office — years they can use to move America so far to the right it will take Democrats a generation to move it back. I think that sounds entirely unlikely because (a) there’s little reason to believe that Republicans buy the idea of their impending demographic doom in the first place, and (b) Republicans know that Democrats could just use the filibuster to prevent them from moving the needle all that far anyway. So the strategy wouldn’t even work. Matt Steinglass displays excellent judgment by agreeing with me:
But I disagree with Mr Drum on one point. If the Republicans retake the Senate next year and have the opportunity to pass major legislation, I think it very likely they’ll get rid of the filibuster, or pare it back in some complicated way that pertains to the issues they consider important. There’s nothing in the constitution about needing to have 60 votes in the Senate. Democrats would have been better able to accomplish their agenda in 2009 and 2010 if they’d scrapped the filibuster, but they’re too fragmented and hesitant to make those kinds of aggressive rule changes. Republicans have tighter party discipline, and the tea-party wing hates complex Washington rules that prevent the people’s will from being done. I don’t really see what’s going to stop the GOP from making the changes they need to pass their agenda with a simple majority, if that’s what they need to do.
I decided not to make a long post longer by addressing this yesterday, but long story short, I don’t think Republicans will do this. If they really did believe they were demographically doomed, and had only two years to save America from an apocalyptic Euro-secular future of moral decay and economic disintegration, then maybe they’d think about it. But I don’t think they believe this. They believe that politics will continue pretty much the way it always has, and they’re going to need the filibuster in the future.
Besides, this doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. If Republicans really do believe that their party is demographically doomed and 2012 is their last stand, this means they also believe that Democrats will take back control of the government in 2016. And if the filibuster has already been mowed down, the jig is up. We’ll have single-payer healthcare, abortion clinics on every corner, and gay marriage at gunpoint by 2017.
Either way, then, the filibuster is safe. If politics continues as normal, Republicans will need the filibuster. If Democrats are going to sweep to power in 2016, Republicans will need the filibuster. It’s not going anywhere.
