On rages the fight by a faction of the right to break the Senate legislative filibuster in order to pass the SAVE Act or SAVE America Act (or, if you will, the fight to use that bill for the desired end of breaking the Senate legislative filibuster). It reached new heights of rhetorical overkill with Elon Musk tweeting, “Failing to pass SAVE is an act of high treason against the people of America.”
As I’ve elaborated here and here, and as our editorials have explained here and here, abolishing or even watering down the barrier placed by the filibuster against bad national legislation would be foolhardy; doing so for this particular bill would create far more mischief over the long run than benefits. It would play into the hands of the left by giving the left what it has long wanted — an end to the filibuster, and thus the power to enact any and all legislation without the consent of 60 senators — but currently lacks, while freeing Democrats of the wrenching political cost of being the ones to take that step.
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