The Filibuster Was Grounded in Slavery and Now Threatens All Life on Earth

It has to end, and you can help

Thom Hartmann
5 min readJan 26, 2021
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

It’s time to end the filibuster and bring democracy to the US Senate.

The filibuster was invented by “the Grandfather of the Confederacy” John C. Calhoun, and its only purpose is to block legislation that otherwise has broad popular support but is opposed by racists and big corporate special interest groups.

It’s not even in the Constitution; the Founders were horrified by the thought of such a thing, because it allows a 2/5ths minority of senators to block any action by the senate majority.

Sadly, two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are blocking the Senate from killing this democracy-crippling anachronism.

The hidden history of the filibuster

The Founding generation were almost universally opposed to anything resembling the filibuster; James Madison fought any such rule right up until his death in 1836.

It is, after all, anti-democratic in that it gives a minority of senators the ability to block any legislation simply by raising their hand or sending a one-sentence note to their colleagues. A single senator can invoke it, and a minority of 41 out of 100 senators can…

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Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann

Written by Thom Hartmann

America’s #1 progressive talk show host & NY Times bestselling author. Thom’s writings also appear at HartmannReport.com.