That was the title of something Rob Saldin and I wrote more than a decade ago for The New York Daily News.
If you hated our point then maybe you’ll hate it now. Or maybe not…since political fortunes have changed. And that’s our core point. If you want a more normal politics then we need a more normal respect for institutions rather than political total war. We discuss that for Welcome Stack today:
Rufus Miles, the legendary federal administrator, coined the aphorism that “where you stand depends on where you sit.” Miles’s Law certainly seems to apply to the Senate filibuster, which requires 60 votes to move most legislation in the United States Senate and has been a target of progressives frustrated by its high bar for compromise.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, recently acknowledged the hypocrisy out loud after Republicans won back Senate control: “Am I championing getting rid of the filibuster now when the [GOP] has the trifecta? No. But had we had the trifecta, I would have been.”
Not long ago – earlier this year – Jayapal and many progressives were advocating scrapping the filibuster as a way to advance their priorities. It’s like a political marshmallow test of immediate versus delayed gratification. Luckily for Democrats, they didn’t succeed. With 53 Republican senators in 2025, plus a tie-breaking vice president, the filibuster is the only leverage Democrats have left in government.
Jayapal isn’t the only one struggling to recognize that actions have downstream consequences…