Congress

McConnell Threatens “Scorched Earth” in Already Scorched Senate

Written by SK Ashby

The time is quickly approaching when Senate Democrats will have to decide if eliminating the legislative filibuster is worth the potential costs down the road when or if Republicans regain control of the chamber.

For his part, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he'll grind the Senate to a halt through "scorched earth" tactics if Democrats eliminate the filibuster.

“This chaos would not open up an express lane to liberal change. It would not open up an express lane for the Biden presidency to speed into the history books. The Senate would be more like a 100-car pileup. Nothing moving,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said on the Senate floor.

“Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin ... to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” he added.

No one has to "imagine" what a "completely scorched-earth Senate" would look like because we've already seen it.

McConnell's vague threat does not scare me because he has already rendered the Senate dysfunctional; the Senate has already been scorched. It was scorched in 2009 when McConnell declared that his Republican party would make President Obama a "one term president," in his own words, and the GOP has obstructed virtually everything ever since then. They never stopped being a permanent opposition party even when they controlled the entire government. They did virtually nothing with the power they had except cut taxes for the rich. Are we suppose to believe the GOP would suddenly find the motivation to pass lots of legislation without a filibuster? I don't buy it. They don't do policy.

It's honestly difficult to remember what a normally functioning Senate looked like at this point. It feels like a lifetime ago. There's an entire generation of young people reaching voting age who literally can't remember what a functioning Senate looks like because they've never seen it.