In his zeal to coerce the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, an ill-conceived and ill-concealed effort at voter suppression under the misguided belief that it’s the only way to assure free and fair elections, Trump has pushed Senate Majority Leader John Thune to “nuke” the filibuster so it can pass by mere majority rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster.

When the Dems held the presidency and Congress, they didn’t end the filibuster, but there were certainly Democrats who believed that it was time to do so in order to enact Biden’s progressive agenda. It didn’t happen then, and it may not happen, as Trump claims in order to convince the MAGA faithful to pressure their MAGA-adjacent senators, if and when the Dems have control of the Senate. But will they next time? Should the filibuster be eliminated so that Congress can enact whatever the majority decides, whether it’s the right or left, MAGA or progressive?

Is the concern the tyranny of the majority, seeking to enact radical change that half the country abhors, or the tyranny of the minority, preventing the majority from accomplishing what it was elected to do?

John Fetterman, a curious figure in the scheme of senatorial politics, for views that often run contrary to those of his fellow Democrats as well as his sartorial choices, has added his voice to the mix.

I thought ending the filibuster was necessary to deliver results for working families. I thought it was unlikely for Republicans in the minority to find common ground on legislation Democrats were proposing. I thought Democrats were not being ruthless the way Republicans were, and we needed to be on that level if we were going to relieve the anger that voters were feeling.

Upon reflection, the pursuit of those short-term wins clouded the bigger picture and lasting impact of a Senate without the filibuster — a Senate that ignored the voices of the minority and everyday people.

Fetterman’s argument raises a question as to whether the “voices of the minority and everyday people” should prevail if they fail to speak for the majority of Americans. There will always be minority voices, which by definition are incapable of winning the day by definition. Isn’t that the way a democracy is supposed to work, where the majority rules and the minority, well, doesn’t?

Even so, Fetterman continues that much of the Biden agenda was enacted despite the filibuster remaining intact.

Even with the filibuster intact, Biden and Senate Democrats delivered huge wins for working families. Several of those successes — like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and legislation to help veterans exposed to toxins in Iraq and Afghanistan — were the result of bipartisanship and compromise. Senate Democrats could not have passed these important pieces of legislation along party lines and had to work across the aisle. We find ourselves in the same situation now with the power dynamic flipped.

Is Fetterman saying that if these “wins” didn’t happen, his rationale was false and his position would flip? Of course, neither Trump nor his acolytes in the Senate see compromise and bipartisanship as a virtue at all, not just worthy of preservation.

Trump’s victory and Republicans taking control of both chambers of Congress quickly showed how chaotic a simple majority vote could be in the Senate. Media outlets and political pundits are routinely alarmed and outraged over the constant churn of new policies from the current administration. And if Americans are horrified now, imagine what could be law today if Democrats had eliminated the filibuster.

Of course, if the Senate nuked the filibuster now to pass the SAVE act, and it turned out that the Republicans nonetheless lost Congress because the putative goal of the act was to prevent a problem that exists only in the fevered mind of conspiracy theorists and a sad old man, it would backfire bigly on Trump, enabling a Democratic Congress to stymie everything Trump hoped to do, including the array of actions he believes he’s empowered to do without congressional authorization when a Dem Congress passes laws preventing Trump from using his “beautiful” marble palace, the Lincoln bathroom, without permission.

Should the Senate eliminate the filibuster in order to enable the majority to pass its agenda, whether it be MAGA, progressive or otherwise? Does a tyranny of the majority take precedence over the minority capable of blocking change, radical or otherwise? Or does a rule that compels compromise, so as to limit the impact of the majority agenda on a substantial minority that finds it anathema? Is it inevitable that someone, eventually, is going to end the filibuster, so it might as well be now rather than letting the next tribe in power do it for their purposes?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.