The Filibuster Will Be With Us For a While

Bernie Sanders says Medicare for All will pass after his silver tongued oratory spurs a revolution. Really?PBS

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I’ve written at greater length about this before, but it’s worth mentioning that the only way a Democratic president will get anything done is to get bills through the Senate with Republican support. Even if Democrats win a thin Senate majority in 2020, we already know they don’t have the votes to eliminate the filibuster. So they’ll need 60 votes for anything. It’s true that there are a few things they can pass via reconciliation, but that has limits too.

So . . . when the candidates talk about how they’re going to get things done, take it with a great big shaker of salt.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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