Kyrsten Sinema's courage, Washington hypocrisy, and the politics of rage - Jonathan Turley

[Geee]

The Hill

In Shakespeare's “Othello,” the character Iago famously declared that "men in rage strike those that wish them best." It was a warning that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) now understands all too well. Both Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have refused to be bullied into changing the filibuster rule — a rule that forces the parties into dialogue and compromise.

Sinema supports the voting rights legislation but sees this move as endangering any chance of national healing and resolution. She stated on the Senate floor that "we have but one democracy. We can only survive, we can only keep her, if we do so together.” That deeply felt speech was met with vile, threatening attacks. It appears that, in a nation addicted to rage, even those seeking an intervention can become the casualties of our political distemper.

Sinema offered the same arguments long used to support the filibuster — indeed, the same arguments made by President Biden until this week. Biden once called earlier efforts to change the filibuster “disastrous” for democracy and proclaimed: “God save us from that fate … [it] would change this fundamental understanding and unbroken practice of what the Senate is all about.” Others joined him then in demanding that Senate Republicans preserve the rule in the name of democracy itself, including colleagues like then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who insisted that abandoning the rule would be “doomsday for Democracy” and reduce the United States to a “banana Republic.”

All of those speeches were celebrated back then in the media and by Democrats as powerful and poignant.