Our thanks today to Jonathan Chait of New York magazine,* who alerted us to an article in the Wall Street Journal in defense of the filibuster. Chait’s own article is entitled, “Is This the Dumbest Filibuster Defense Ever Written?”
The authors of the WSJ piece are Mike Solon and Bill Greene, identified by Chait as
former advisers to Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, respectively, and now (naturally) lobbyists.
Their defense of the filibuster, the way a minority of Senators can thwart the passage of legislation favored by a majority of that body, focuses on those citizens that the authors identify as “political innocents . . . political nobodies.” Solon and Greene see these Americans who spend their time
playing, praying, fishing, tailgating, reading, hunting, gardening, studying and caring for their children
—if allowed to exercise their political rights—having to spend their time
rallying, canvassing, picketing, lobbying, protesting, texting, posting, parading and, above all, shouting.
*
Now, the article by Solon** and Greene may well offer the “dumbest” defense of the filibuster, but it is totally in-line with standard Republican thinking. After all, don’t they want us all down on our knees praying rather than mobilizing to effect a fairer, more equal America? School prayer vs. desegregated schools—which side are Republicans on? Keep the “nobodies” from posting a mail-in ballot; restrict the franchise to the somebodies—who, miraculously, happen to be Republicans.
A “dumb” but standard Republican argument.
*
As a further example of this standard thinking, consider the words of the Republican lovechild the economist Milton Friedman, as reported in the most recent issue of The New Republic*** In a speech in apartheid South Africa in 1976, Friedman rejected the principle of “one person, one vote.”
Voting, Friedman declared, was inescapably corrupt, a distorted “market” in which “special interests” inevitably dictated the course of public life. Most voters were “ill-informed.” Voting was a “highly weighted” process that created the illusion of social cooperation that whitewashed a reality of “coercion and force.” True democracy, Friedman insisted, was to be found not through the franchise, but the free market . . . .
After 45 years, the Republican song remains the same:
“Political innocents,” “political nobodies,” “the ill-informed” have no business partaking in the political process, no business in deciding who should establish the laws that they must live by. Once upon a time, our colonial ancestors declared, “No taxation without representation.” Today, our Republican somebodies are dedicated to keep taxing the “nobodies” (not the rich), while preventing them from voting.
“We the self-identified ‘informed’ know what’s good for you; don’t worry your little heads over it.”
***
* https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/is-this-the-dumbest-filibuster-defense-ever-written.html
** Irony alert: According to Greek mythology, the name of the wise Athenian who gave the laws (democracy) to that city was Solon.
*** https://newrepublic.com/article/162623/milton-friedman-legacy-biden-government-spending
Excellent job, Harold...you got to the nub of it...
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