PRAGMATIC ISSUES

Mr. President, Is This About Guarding America or Guarding Your Agenda

Donald Trump is clinging to his demand to kill the Senate filibuster. He says it is time to stop gridlock and start “getting things done.” That sounds noble until you realize that what he really means is “getting his things done.”

He has been shouting about the filibuster for years, calling it obsolete and disastrous. Now he wants it gone because Republicans hold a slim majority. He insists that ending it would free the Senate from paralysis. It might also free him from opposition.

The filibuster requires sixty votes to pass most major legislation. It protects the minority party from being bulldozed by the majority. It slows things down, yes, but sometimes slowing down is how democracy avoids burning itself alive. Trump does not care about that. He cares about control.

This is not about restoring order or helping Americans. It looks like a portability plan for political power. Not the kind you get with your phone, but the kind you carry from one administration to the next. If his party kills the filibuster, he gets to pack that change in a suitcase and take it with him long after he leaves office.

He calls it efficiency. Others call it erasing a check on power. The truth is somewhere in between, but closer to the second. The filibuster is an old and frustrating rule, yet it is also one of the last barriers that stops any president from turning the Senate into a personal assembly line.

Trump’s timing could not be more self-serving. The country is deep in a shutdown that has gone on for more than a month. Federal workers are struggling to pay bills while politicians bicker. The public is losing patience. Trump sees an opportunity to appear as the man who will “fix” it by rewriting the rules entirely.

It is easy to promise reform when you are holding the gavel. It is harder to admit that someday the other party will be the one holding it. When that happens, the same rule change could turn into a nightmare. The same senators who are cheering now will be begging for the old filibuster back.

Portable power feels good while it is in your pocket.

Then the battery dies, and you remember why limits exist.

Trump calls this plan patriotic.

He calls it guarding America.

Maybe what he really wants to guard is his majority.