The saying that elections have consequences is well known. And as much as many of us may be disgusted with the political process and not want to vote, the political process isn’t going to leave us alone. We can try to ignore politics as much as possible, but politics isn’t going to ignore us.
Now that we’ve seen what happened in the 2020 elections, we have to suffer the consequences. Particularly damaging were the results of the two Georgia Senate runoff elections, in which many Republican voters apparently decided not to vote, as they believed that the election results would be determined by fraud. The staying home of voters, combined with the unwillingness of Republican elected officials to investigate claims of electoral fraud, handed the election to Democrats.
That means that the Senate is now split 50-50, with Vice President Harris casting the deciding vote. And what have Democrats decided to do with their non-majority? The first thing they want to do is eliminate the filibuster in the Senate. The filibuster is a long-standing rule in the Senate that essentially means that 60 votes are needed to pass controversial legislation. Democrats eliminating that and allowing a simple majority to pass legislation is known as the “nuclear option,” and could be incredibly dangerous.
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had hoped to keep Democrats from eliminating the filibuster, but he has dropped his opposition after two Democratic Senators indicated that they wouldn’t support eliminating the filibuster. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be pressured or bribed to vote to eliminate the filibuster, so McConnell may very well have been played.
But what is far more concerning is Democrats’ wishes to pack the Supreme Court. Democrats have no problem with the Supreme Court being the final word on constitutionality, as long as the Court agrees with them. Now that the Court might have a conservative majority, Democrats are wondering how to overcome that.
The last time packing the Court was threatened was during the reign of our benevolent dictator FDR. He merely had to threaten the Court with packing, and the Court miraculously ruled that all of his unconstitutional actions were constitutional.
Today, the Biden administration is setting up a committee to examine the possibility of packing the Court, which committee would issue a report within six months. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what it will say?
If we’re lucky, we’ll have one last chance at the polls in 2022 to send Democrats packing. But if we’re not lucky, and Democrats go for broke right now, we may have lost our chance to defend our freedoms forever. Remember that elections have consequences, and that not voting in today’s highly charged political climate could be like committing political suicide.