Biden Says Ending the Filibuster Would Lead to ‘Gridlock’. Really?
Where has he been for the entirety of his term thus far?
Biden’s tenure as President hasn’t exactly been full of stellar accomplishment. Ever since the Covid-19 relief bill, Biden has been unable and unwilling to pressure lawmakers even amongst his own party to get behind his agenda. Though, the fact that the two Senators from Delaware who happen to be his closest allies in the Senate voted against the $15 minimum wage seems to lend reason to believe it was never his agenda to begin with. All that being said, one thing we can rely dependably upon Democrats for is excuses as to why they can’t seem to get anything done. Of course, among the most popular of the talking points centers around the filibuster, which with its establishment of a 60 vote threshold for anything to pass effectively sends legislation to die in the Senate.
Understandably, senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have been the faces of the opposition to filibuster reform, and happily represent a broader obstructionist movement that seeks to use it to torpedo virtually any progressive policy goals, even voting rights legislation. While I have admittedly focused most of my ire on the subject towards the two of them, I have asked a number of times: where is Joe Biden? Are we really expected to believe that Manchin, Sinema, and the other senators supporting them would be behaving the way they are if they didn’t have the blessing from the leader of the party?
Well, as it turns out, Joe Biden recently expressed his unequivocal support for the archaic and inherently racist senate norm that destroys virtually everything he purportedly stands for.
At a recent town hall, an audience member asked Joe Biden if he genuinely believes that the Republicans restricting access to voting is the greatest assault on our democracy since the civil war, wouldn’t he want to do everything he could to stop it, such as ending the filibuster and passing the voting rights act. Don Lemon, host of the town hall, agreed and said that if it was a relic of Jim Crow, why protect it?
Joe Biden, unsurprisingly, responded with:
“There’s no reason to protect it, other than you’re going to…
