In this Townhall, Joe Biden talked
about the filibuster,
which is currently stopping pretty
much everything from happening.
Most recently the compromise of
a compromise voting bill that the
Republicans successfully blocked
with a filibuster this week.
Here's what Joe Biden
had to say about that.
>> But I also think we're going to
have to move to the point where we
fundamentally alter the filibuster.
The idea that, for example, my
Republican friends say that we're
going to default on the national
debt, because they're going to
filibuster that and we need
ten Republicans to support us is
the most bizarre thing ever heard.
I think you're going to see, and
that gets pulled again, I think
we'll see an awful lot of Democrats
being ready to say not me,
I'm not doing that again.
We're going to end the filibuster.
But it's still as difficult to
end the filibuster beyond that,
that's another issue.
>> But are you saying once you get
this current agenda passed on
spending and social programs, that
you would be open to fundamentally
altering the filibuster?
[CROSSTALK] >> Or doing away with
and they are doing away with it?
>> Well that remains to be seen.
>> But when it comes to voting
rights- >> Voting right uniquely is
consequential.
>> When it comes to voting rights,
just so I'm clear though,
you would entertain the notion of
doing away with the filibuster
on that one issue.
Is that correct?
>> And maybe more.
>> And maybe others issues.
>> Okay, so right there you hear
him say he would be willing to do
it for that, and many more.
And he said that you might have at
some point, I don't know why we
would still need things to prod
the Democrats in supporting this.
What have they not seen that
they yet need to see?
But the issue is that you can get
as many as you want as long as you
do not get all 50,
and you don't have all 50,
they're not going to reform it.
Manchin and Sinema and Nina Turner
was saying earlier, probably, two
to six more are not going to do it.
Even for carve-outs for
things like voting rights.
Meanwhile, our voting rights are
getting shredded, which is not only
objectively wrong in a democracy,
but also make it substantially
harder for the Democrats to win
the elections necessary to get into
the Senate, to eventually reform
the filibuster.
It's an amazing self-fulfilling
prophecy in that way.
So he seems okay with the idea, but
we're no closer to actually getting
it done.
Not based on anything that I've
seen, but feel free to let me know
if you disagree.
>> No I mean, and there it is.
I mean, you just laid it out, John,
it makes no sense.
All roads lead back to voting.
So in order to elect people who
hopefully might do something
on behalf of the people,
we got to make sure that voting is
expanded and protected.
We know throughout the states
in this country that Republicans
are absolutely having a field
day with it.
We also know historically
the filibuster has been used for
very racist means, I mean,
most often used to stop civil
rights legislation, just period.
So they should have been
taking care of this.
Now the point that he's making
about getting, The infrastructure
passed and both the heart and
social infrastructure pass,
okay, I'm going to give
the president that.
But at the same time,
making it very clear that we cannot
continue on this course,
it is very disruptive to the whole
of democracy.
And the fact that for
the People Act is going nowhere,
the John Lewis Voting Rights Act
might go somewhere.
They allow Manchin to introduce
a watered down version for
the People Act that does nothing
with dark money ask the brother
to bring ten Republicans.
He had one job,
one job to bring ten Republicans
across the line to pass his version
of the legislation.
Why they would give this man this
kind of deference just absolutely
boggles my mind, especially
since it has been revealed that he
thinking about going independent
any day gone away.
Why are they letting this man be
the shadow president?
He out of the shadows.
He just flat out
acting as if he's the president.
But let me just get one more thing
back to President Johnson.
What he said about voting,
a man without a vote is a man
without protection.
Let me throw people in there, but
a people without a vote are people
without protection.
That is it,
all roads lead to two things.
We need campaign financial form,
and we need to make sure that we
are expanding and protecting the
ballot box, they go hand in hand.
And the fact that these people
don't get that and understand that
enough, and the African-American
community in particular,
not the only issues that we care
about his, but historically voting.
And the way we got the ability to
be able to vote in this country,
is so deep-seated in our
liberation in this country.
And overwhelmingly we support
the Democratic Party
disproportionately, all the people
will dance and date all the folks.
We got a wide coalition, but
don't get me wrong, but
African Americans are the lawless
base of the Democratic Party.
The fact that they are not putting
a higher premium on ensuring that
voting is secure and expanded and
getting rid of the filibuster
boggles my mind.
>> Yes, especially when they
consistently rely on
the African American vote, time and
time again, and propping up people
like Kyrsten Sinema and
Joe Manchin to come through.
Please make the calls,
please do all this,
we're going to get the majority.
And look what happened
in North Carolina or in Georgia,
excuse me, what happened in Georgia
and Raphael Warnock and Jon Osoff.
And the amount of effort
that that took in the grassroots
organizations.
From black organizations to
Asian-American organizations,
to Latino voters just everyone,
it was such an a group effort, and
they're squandering it, right?
And just again, his stance in that
town hall, I mean,
I don't know they need to do these
in the morning or something or
whenever he's at the peak,
because he's just so defeated!
Yeah, maybe more, I don't know.
Dooby doo, I'm so unconvinced, and
I know a lot of media outlets are,
hey, maybe
this will really do something and
they're very excited about it.
I don't see a man who is convinced,
I don't see a person, a politician
who is going to lead this charge.
I see someone who feels already
defeated around the things
that he's trying to get done.
>> Yeah.
>> And he's allowing others
to stymie him.
And I just want to say, all of this
makes me realize, we talk about
the inside political strategy.
A lot of this gets very wonky.
Who's meeting with whom,
who is moving on this and that?
And we have to remember that
the outside political strategy
of mass movements and pressure and
grassroots organizing, is so
important and valuable.
Especially when again, we're being
utterly lied to about the good
fakeness of any of these senators,
about the Democratic, the fact that
the Senate is undemocratic in and
of itself.
Speaking about legacies of racism
and slavery in this country,
the Senate was enshrined to protect
minority rule, and
that's what it does.
Why do you have 50 Republicans who
represent millions fewer than
the 50 or 49 others,
Democratic senators, right?
We understand that, and so
we're at the end of our rope.
And back in 30 years ago maybe,
I was young, lefty coming up,
protesting the war in Iraq and
I was like, throw politics,
f it all, and I feel that way.
But it's the people in charge
are going to sink us all,
bringing us all down together,
and they're going to float up on
their little buoys of cash.
>> Yeah.
>> So we can't afford to not care
about this, but we still need to
maintain, I wouldn't even say like
a certain amount of militancy when
it comes to mass pressure >> 100%
yeah, and I understand the system
is obviously absolutely disgusting.
But I also know that if Republicans
could push a button and have every
single person like you were then
give up on electoral politics for
the rest of your life,
they would jam it until it broke.
>> Yes.
[LAUGH] >> Both of you have talked
about history, about how
the filibuster has been used.
I think historically more than 50%
of the filibusters for several
decades, were specifically stopping
any sort of civil rights reforms.
And Francesca you're just talking
about how messed up and
unrepresentative the Senate is.
And there are things that have
changed in the past 50, 60 years,
but there are some
things that haven't nearly as much.
And so I want to demonstrate that,
playing video that we've played
before in the show.
And it has to do with a bunch of
racists and some moderates using
the filibuster, to protect the
voting suppression that's going on.
This is a video of Martin Luther
King Jr., and other than that it
could be played today and be just
as accurate about what's going on.
Take a look at this.
>> Well,
I think the tragedy is that we have
a Congress with a Senate that has
a minority of misguided senators
who will use the filibuster to keep
the majority of people from even
voting.
They won't let
the majority senators vote.
And certainly they wouldn't want
the majority of people to
vote because they know they do not
represent the majority
of the American people.
In fact, they represent in their
own states, a very small minority.
>> It's 100% true.
Everything that the Republicans
are doing in the Senate,
in state legislatures,
demonstrates that they do not have
one ounce of faith that they will
ever get a majority of the country
to support them or their agenda.
Assuming that someday
they ever have an agenda again,
other than tax cuts,
voter suppression, and occasionally
demonizing transgender athletes.
Other than that, they have nothing,
they don't feel the need to get
anything, because they are every
day building on the multi-layered
unrepresentative biased system that
we have.
And it comes in a lot of different
forms, the Electoral College,
the fact that you can
gerrymander the inherent system
of representation in the Senate,
all of this.
And they've been adding layers of
voter suppression to it for
decades and decades and decades.
It was bad, in 1963,
when that video was recorded, and
it's gotten worse,
basically every year since then.
Especially since the Supreme Court
decided that I guess states aren't
racist anymore and you don't need
the Voting Rights Act.
And the last couple of years might
be the worst of all.
And the Democratic party has an
obligation, a duty to be the only
party to stand up for democracy.
If you're not going to have two,
you should at least have one, and
they're not doing it.
Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, and
a few others, would prefer to have
the filibuster as a shield.
Not a shield that protects
democracy, but a shield that
protects them from ever having to
do anything in the Senate.
And if the cost of that is that
the voters of Georgia who've done
unimaginable work to finally elect
two senators.
If that gets taken away in the next
cycles because of the new
voter suppression,
then he's fine with that.
If Texas which has been,
trending blue if they hold that in
its tracks, then that's fine.
If they can flip Arizona and
some other states by making it so
difficult for Democrats to vote,
Joe Manchin and
Kyrsten aren't going to lose any
sleep over that, and
that could not be any more clear.
But as Francesca said, Joe Biden,
if he understands these steaks,
he's sure not acting like it.
>> These things are not separate,
they're very much a part of the
whole, they really do go together.
And that is what we need
the Democrats to understand.
I believe that the Democrats
are going to get handed next year
in 2022.
because another point that
Francesca made,
that even if we get the crumbs,
how they put it out, when do
the everyday people feel the impact
of the crumbs remains to be seen.
And will it be in enough time
to actually sway voters that their
material conditions have changed or
will be changing soon?
That is going to impact 2022.
>> Yeah.
>> Democrats need to wield power,
is finite,
you don't have it all the time.
And really the difference between
the Democrats and the Republicans,
the Republicans wouldn't
give a care.
They are going to wield that power.
I mean, Senator McConnell is
wielding in that power.
He got an Ironclad lock on his
caucus, and I wish the American
people, although I'm a Democrat
have more of a choice,
because the Republicans have lost
they're ever loving minds.
And the Democrats ain't far from
it because they not wielding that
power that was given to them.
Again Georgia brought it all home
but I think
it's going to be squandered.
And Democrats are going to have
a serious awakening that is beyond
politics because it
has consequences to the people who
depend on the government to stand
up for them and do their bidding.
They goona get handed in 2022
>> Yeah- >> That's right,
fast point.
>> Super fast we're at
a breaking point for sure.
And this pandemic proves that we
don't have a country anymore.
And I'm reminded of the quote,
it's either socialism or barbarism.
It's either democratic socialism,
it's actual social programs for
the people or is barbarism.
And it's all the warfare that the
crazy Republicans as Nina Turner
said, who've lost their damn mind,
what they're pushing us to, so
make a choice.