Black civil rights leaders, voting rights advocates, and elected officials are pulling out all the stops to pressure Senate Democrats into getting rid of the filibuster. They know it’s the key to enacting not just the voting rights bill, but the entire radical agenda the Democrats have concocted to transform America.
The radicals smell blood in the water. In this hypersensitive race-conscious time, black leaders are shamelessly using race to lean on Democratic senators who aren’t entirely convinced getting rid of the filibuster would be a good thing.
Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader and former presidential candidate, said in an interview that he and others have begun talks to hold town halls and rallies in the home states of senators such as Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who have said they oppose scrapping the filibuster.
“The pressure that we are going to put on Sinema and Manchin is calling [the filibuster] racist and saying that they are, in effect, supporting racism,” Sharpton said. “Why would they be wedded to something that has those results? Their voters need to know that.”
In fact, the filibuster was not conceived as a racist parliamentary device. It may have been used from time to time to stop civil rights legislation, but why does that on its own make it “racist”? The filibuster has been used to block all sorts of legislation over the years — transportation bills, budget bills, appropriations bills of all kinds.
The filibuster is “racist” because we’re told it’s “racist.” The purveyors of that lie offer no proof other than citing examples where the filibuster was used to block civil rights legislation. Using that yardstick, the filibuster is far more an anti-government-spending parliamentary device than it has anything to do with race.
Joe Manchin appears to be the number one target of the radicals.
Hailing from a conservative state, the senator may welcome the idea of progressive activists targeting him. Nevertheless, Sharpton’s remarks reflect the more intense, personalized push set to come targeting Democratic holdouts on voting rights bills. The longtime civil rights advocate and television personality said Democrats are deploying a “risky strategy” by not pushing rule reforms to pass such legislation. Civil rights leaders, he warned, might have less reason to help generate enthusiasm and turnout in the 2022 midterm elections without being able to point to actual laws Democrats passed.
Sharpton has a point about party enthusiasm, but so does Manchin.
Manchin said on Wednesday that he wanted to see both parties “come together” on the bill, telling reporters that while there were so many good things in the proposal, “we should not at all attempt to do anything that will create more distrust,” in the election process. And in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Manchin, who co-sponsored the same bill in the previous Congress, suggested the package should be focused just on voting rights, which would likely mean shedding sections on everything from campaign finance to lobbying ethics.
Sharpton and black activists just wish all this democracy stuff would go away and anyone with opposing viewpoints silenced. They don’t want compromise. They don’t want “bipartisanship.” They seek to dictate. And they look to rule.
The voting rights bill would go a long way toward giving them their wish.
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