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AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Kamala Harris has officially lost Joe Manchin’s support. The soon-to-be ex-West Virginia senator unequivocally rebuked the Democratic Party nominee after she pledged to eliminate the filibuster to “codify” Roe v. Wade on Tuesday.
The Harris campaign’s social media team put out a post highlighting her recent comments in which she stated that she’s “been very clear” about destroying one of the few bulwarks against total chaos left at the federal government level.
Understand that when Democrats say they want to restore the “protections of Roe v. Wade,” they are not going to be satisfied with simply reinstating viability standards. That’s just a red herring they use to try to appear less radical to the American people. Rest assured, any abortion legislation passed by a Democrat-led U.S. Senate and signed by a hypothetical President Kamala Harris would “codify” abortion until birth. How do we know that? Because their last attempt at “codifying” Roe did just that.
Manchin’s primary issue isn’t abortion, though. It’s the elimination of the filibuster, something he has fought to prevent for years. Up until this point, it wasn’t clear whether Harris still held such a position given she’s flip-flopped on so many other things. With her announcement, Manchin decided he had heard enough.
Will this make a difference in the election? Probably not outside of a select few moderates who are smart enough to recognize what keeping the filibuster in place means. Manchin is certainly right to shun Harris over her pledge, though.
I get that in the current political environment, everybody looks at the government as a means of power to punish one’s enemies. In that sense, pure majority rule in the Senate appears to make some sense. After all, if you’ve got the votes, why not nuke it and push through your agenda?
I’ll dissent from that viewpoint, though. I think the filibuster is all that’s left at the federal level keeping Democrats from completely destroying the nation. Harris’ pledge to get rid of it is dangerous not because of politics but because of the very real consequences that occur. Every left-wing pipedream would become a reality, and there would be nothing left if that happened.
Republicans are likely to control the Senate after this election. They need to do everything they can to solidify the filibuster, not take it out for short-term gain. I get that a lot of Republicans will scoff at me saying that, but consider that Democrats will retake the Senate, and likely sooner rather than later. There’s nothing the GOP has in the works that is worth handing the left a free-for-all in the most important legislative body. Doing that would backfire worse than Harry Reid ending the filibuster on judicial nominees.
