Filibusters and Obstructionism --Why are Republicans afraid of democracy?

Terre Haute Tribune Star,  April 8, 2021

To the Editor:

 Once we had “Dick Russell’s Dixieland Band.” Russell was the Democratic senator from Georgia who for decades orchestrated filibusters and delays that headed off any legislation that carried a whiff of challenge to white supremacy. The band killed federal anti-lynching and anti-poll-tax legislation. It fought and watered down 1942 and 1944 soldier vote legislation because some members of the Greatest Generation were Black and might vote in, say, Georgia. They gutted a comprehensive civil-rights bill in 1956. A 1957 version was finally passed. It was toothless, thanks to Russell’s obstructionists.

Now we have Mitch McConnell’s GOP Glee Club singing the praises of the filibuster. They proudly hold it up as a sword to protect the minority. There’s the standard line we regularly hear about those who don’t learn from history are blah, blah, blah ... But the trained parrots in McConnell’s Glee Club have learned from history. They slaver over the chance to repeat history, Sen. Russell style, through obstructionism and filibusters.

As is so often the case, Lincoln said it best: “Unanimity is impossible,” he explained, “the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy, or despotism in some form, is all that is left.”

Democrats in the Senate should do all within their power to end the filibuster.

— Gary W. Daily, Terre Haute