Trump to Senate: If the filibuster is preventing good legislation, then get rid of it

The Democrats are high-fiving and fist-pumping today because even though they're in the minority and nominally out of power, all they have to do is threaten a shutdown via a Senate filibuster and their Republican counterparts - both on Capitol Hill and in the White House - are ready to cave. This is an awful week for governance by the Republican Party. If you're a Republican, you should be ashamed. Your party failed needlessly and inexcusably. Now, having said that, I can foresee how this turns into the rock bottom from which the rebound begins. I argued last week, as I have in the past, that this and other similar frustrations demonstrate why it's time for the Senate to get rid of the filibuster entirely. Traditionalist Republicans like John McCain and Orrin Hatch hate the idea, and thus far Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been loathe to propose it for legislation. But they've never before had a president publicly urge them to do it. Today, that changed:

The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good "shutdown" in September to fix mess!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

You may be impatient with the pace of the swamp-draining to date, but Trump is making a fairly radical statement here compared with other presidents. The Washington establishment basically accepts the filibuster as a fact of life. In fact, politicians who want to look like they're trying to do something they don't really want to do often use the filibuster as an excuse for why they failed. Because of the filibuster and the resulting everything-needs-60-votes-to-pass reality, no one expects the Senate to ever be able to do anything. And it usually can't. For some reason, people like John McCain think this is a tradition worth preserving. That is about as idiotic as a thing can be. Trump is now talking about merely forestalling the shutdown showdown until September, as if all that's happening now is a tactical retreat. I am not going to carry water for Trump on this. The time to stand up to the Democrats on spending was now. All they did by conceding this round was embolden them. But let's say that's what they're really doing. The way for Republicans to redeem themselves is to go balls-to-the-wall in September for a real, normal-order budget that covers an entire fiscal year and completely changes the spending priorities of the federal government. Take money away from the EPA and Planned Parenthood. Boost spending for the military and the border wall. Cut spending overall. Even pair it with tax reform if you want to. And if the Democrats try to stop it by using the filibuster, either let them do it and battle for public opinion on the matter, or better yet, take the filibuster away from them pass the damn budget with a majority vote. I'm glad Trump has put this on the table, but will he really fight for it in September? Will he really put pressure on McConnell and other weak-kneed, traditionalist senators to change the status quo in a meaningful way? Because people are noticing that what Trump says on Twitter is not necessarily consistent with what he ultimately settles for, and at some point people are going to stop believing he means it. That is, if the projectile vomit of a spending deal he's going to sign this week hasn't already made that happen.