If we win the Senate in January

[mtnsnake]

then to hell with putting aside the partisanship and working with the other side, not after what they have done to us all these years, for example like when they all signed a pact to obstruct every single thing Obama wanted to put through. Instead of throwing partisanship under the rug, throw the GOP under it and stomp all over it.

Seriously, if we win the Senate, we're supposed to let bygones be bygones and work with them after they never would work with us? Work with them on what? No. If we win the Senate, then screw them, it's time to push through as much of our progressive agenda as is possible because it's the right thing to do and because we will finally have the power to do it without them tearing up every damn bill that the House sends up.

If we don't win the Senate, then yes that's another story, and we can try the "put partisan aside" thing. But think about it. If we don't win the Senate, does anyone honestly think the GOP is going to invite us to sit around the campfire and sing kumbaya with them? It would never happen, they will not work with us, period.

So if we are fortunate enough to gain Senate control in January, I believe the time will have arrived for us to show them that we are not interested in working with them, period, at least not until they change all their ass-backwards ideas of what is right and what is wrong. If we gain control, let them go jump in a frozen lake.

[blueinredohio]

1. I agree completely.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. It takes more than a simple majority in the Senate ...

... without 60 senators, we can't just run the table.

[redstatebluegirl]

3. This is an important reminder.

I keep hearing my progressive friends say "we just need Georgia and we can do what we want", no we can't.

[mtnsnake]

6. So you're saying that Kamala Harris's tie breaking vote doesn't matter?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. Some things can be done by a simple majority.

Judges and justices, for example, can now be confirmed by simple majority. Some budget reconciliation* stuff as well. But new legislation generally requires 60 votes.

That 51st vote would be great for deciding which party chairs the committees.

* "reconciliation": dunno, too complicated for me. During Trump administration, it means "Trojan Horse".

[tritsofme]

4. I'm not sure exactly what this means, in a 50-50 Senate, moderate Democrats hold a lot of power

Joe Manchin for instance, has already taken ending the filibuster and expanding the Supreme Court off the table.

In such a Senate, 60 votes will still be required for everything except presidential nominations and a once yearly Budget Reconciliation bill.

[brooklynite]

5. Have you taken this view up with Joe Biden? You might be disappointed.

[mtnsnake]

7. Of course I did

Do you honestly think I'd post something as radical as this without checking with him first (not really, right)? Do you enjoy getting stomped into the earth by the GOP year after year? I don't.

[brooklynite]

8. I enjoy dealing with reality and not raising my hopes without reason to do so....

I've had personal engagements with VP Biden, and while I know he's smart enough to understand what sort of a person McConnell is, I don't see him going with a scorched earth policy.

[USALiberal]

10. I was waiting for this! nt

[mtnsnake]

11. No offense, but I don't think you're dealing with reality at all

if you think for one second that the GOP is going to be willing to put partisanship aside all of a sudden. To me that's being naive.

[JGladstone]

12. The right-wing and the owners use their power effectively

"If history teaches us right, we know this much—right and wrong are relative terms —and it all resolves into a question of Power. Cold, unsentimental Power. From the standpoint of accepted law, morals, religion, etc., the capitalists are considered right and justified in their control and ownership of industries and exploitation of labor because they have the means to hire, and have organized a gang that skulks under the name of “Law, Order and Authority,” that is well paid and well kept to interpret and execute laws in favor of the paymasters of course.

Our country has been ravaged and stolen by industrial pirates and yet, learned judges have decreed that it was “legal.” Attorneys and politicians have written lengthy briefs and argued long and eloquently, preachers have spoken wise sermons; in short, whatever the king has done, the courtiers have most humbly considered right and the guards and men-at-arms been ready to see that the slaves did not rebel against it all.

Prepared to carry out the capitalists' every will, this kept-crew is well paid, entrenched and armed, and while it hides under the silk skirts of Mesdames “Law and Order,” is as desperate and brutal a crew as ever scuttled a ship or quartered a man.

Yet with this alone Capitalism could not live.

It is the false conception and consciousness of the vast majority of the workers who hold up the hands of the master class, and in their ignorance look upon the rich as the symbols of all that is virtuous, noble and wise, while if they were conscious of the facts they would look upon private ownership of socially necessary things as the great social crime and the owners and upholders as so many social criminals, that makes it possible for it to live.

New conceptions of Right and Wrong must generate and permeate the workers. We must look on conduct and actions that advance the social and economic position of the working class as Right, ethically, legally, religiously, socially and by every other measurement. That conduct and those actions which aid, helps to maintain and gives comfort to the capitalist class, we must consider as Wrong by every standard."

Joseph Ettor (labor organizer)-Public Domain