What If Iranians Don’t Want to Be ‘Free’?

Townhall 

I’m not one of those people tapping their foot saying, “When is the war going to end? It’s been dragging on and is a disaster!” No, those people are idiots actively hoping the United States is damaged because of who the President of the United States is. Nor do I think the Iranian regime didn’t deserve to be wiped out – those who used to be in charge (and alive) were evil and them no longer existing is a great thing for humanity. But what comes next isn’t up to us, it’s up to the people of Iran to act. And there is still an open question about what it is they want, so we have to consider the possibility that most of them simply don’t want to be “free.”

The theory of the Bush administration was that the people of Iraq would greet us as liberators when we took out Saddam Hussein, which they actually did. But after that, rather than embrace their newfound freedoms, they simply reverted back to centuries old tribal warfare with each other. 

How could that happen? Because they didn’t have any concept of freedom, or they simply would’ve liked to be the ones forcing their will on others, rather than having the will of others forced on them. Kind of like Democrats here.

If you’ve never experienced liberty before, you don’t know what it is. It’s not the natural state of humanity. Most of human history is riddled with oppression. Not in the way a leftist would have you think, but in a raceless way of there being a leadership that tells everyone else what and how to be. The idea of voting existed in some places, but it was often ignored or tossed when it went against the wishes of the leaders, like Democrats here when they lose a referendum and sue.

We’ve had the concept of liberty in this country for almost 250 years, but another way to look at this is we’ve had the concept of liberty in this country for only almost 250 years. Human beings have been around a lot longer than that, and most of them never experienced anything like we have today.

In Afghanistan, as oppressive as the Taliban is, most Afghans are either down with because they share their oppressive religious beliefs, or they live in such remote, unconnected places that whatever government they have in Kabul doesn’t matter to them either way. We thought they were oppressed, they thought they were living how they’ve always lived. We were both right and they didn’t care to change.

All you can do is give people the opportunity to step up for themselves, you can’t make them take it. 

Iran is slightly different in that before the radical Islamists took over, the country was very modern. There are a lot of people alive who remember what it was like to not have to cover women or fear their government murdering them because they’ve somehow offended religious sensibilities. They’ve likely told stories of what it was like before the fascists overthrew the Shah, so the concept isn’t foreign. But maybe it’s not wanted?

It's clear there was a desire for ridding itself of the fascist Ayatollah, which brought hundreds of thousands of Iranians to the streets in protest. But maybe that was all they were willing to do – march in protest hoping their government would change? 

Revolutions are rarely bloodless, but to conduct one you must be willing to fight to the point of death, either to you or your opponent. The regime has proven time and again, from its founding, that it has the appetite to kill for power. The people who oppose it have not shown that. 

Every few years, the Iranian people would rise up in the streets, then their government would quash them. A bunch of people would get killed, the world would condemn it, lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing would come of it.

We thought it was because the people didn’t have arms and the government did. Maybe that was part of it, but maybe it was also that protesting was about as far as anyone was willing to go? The regime had no problem killing, but average people do. Without that last step, failure was the only option as regime collapse wasn’t going to happen with nothing there to cast it aside.

Iran just slaughtered anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 of its own people for protesting, the remaining people are probably a little hesitant to step out again, understandably so. There’s also the possibility that the people willing to do what is necessary to overthrow their government were those people killed. It only takes a few to spark something, but a fuse doesn’t light itself. If the people with the fire are gone…

Or maybe they’re just waiting for the US to tell them it’s go-time, I don’t know. Personally, I think what happens to Iran is up to the Iranian people, so if a military guy is allowed to seize power and dominate, if the religious monsters stay in, or the people take over and implement something better is not my concern. I don’t want them to have a nuclear program, to fund terrorism or have any influence over shipping. The rest is up to them.

The actions the Trump administration have taken are helping on those points, what comes after, or even if there is a change, is up to the Iranian people. There will come a point ever soon where they will have a chance, probably their only chance, to overthrow their despotic oppressors. That is, however, only if they want to. A fish doesn’t know it’s wet, some people don’t know they’re oppressed. All you can do is give them the opportunity to take care of themselves, you can’t make them take advantage of it. I hope they do, because they’ll never have a better one.

Expect Chaos in Cuba

American Thinker 

The Communist dictatorship in Cuba is on its last legs. For decades, it had a parasitical relationship with the Soviet Union, which kept it alive economically, militarily, and politically. The Soviet Union was able to last for as long as it did because it was truly gargantuan, spanning two continents and filled with natural resources which the government utilized to stave off the inevitable end of all Marxist regimes. But when it, in turn, collapsed, Cuba’s economy took an even deeper dive than before, euphemistically referred to as the “Special Period.”

Then, oil-rich Venezuela, the wealthiest country in South America, became Communist and extended a lifeline to Cuba while it, too, oppressed its people and ruined the country. With the arrival of Donald Trump, that lifeline is now gone. Cuba has no oil and we can see what happens when fossil fuels disappear (paying attention, global warmists?).

Thanks to decades of Communist rule, Cuba is as decrepit as Haiti. Yes, that bad. Buildings and homes are literally disintegrating each year due to the harsh Caribbean sun and sea air, the inhabitants unable to repair the damage, and there are piles of garbage on the streets (it is hard to imagine that Havana and many other Cuban cities were once pristine). Food is scarce. In cities, there are certain spots that are livable, even beautiful. They are either for Cuba’s nomenklatura or where tourists -- particularly Canadian, French, and Spanish Communists -- stay and visit. Ordinary Cubans rarely eat fish -- and Cuba is an island in the Caribbean! And sugar, for which the country was famous and resulted in the Dance of the Millions during WWI? Nope.

The reader may be aware that Zimbabwe was once a breadbasket. Under black Communist rule, it, too, has had to import food.

Incidentally, something that has not been acknowledged is that the Communist regime would have been overthrown long ago, except that escaping to Florida was a pressure valve that sent the potentially most dangerous foes overseas (even so, there have been occasional outbursts, the most well-known being “El Maleconazo”). This is similar to what happened after the Russians crushed the Hungarian revolt; after some hesitation, the Soviet and Hungarian Communists opened the border to let the Hungarian fighters emigrate to Austria; this safety valve was recorded in a much-neglected work by James Michener, The Bridge at Andau.

The Communists in America and Canada have always insisted the reason for decrepitude in Cuba is not Communism but the American embargo, omitting the fact that there are over a hundred countries that can trade with Cuba. They will voice compassion for the suffering Cubans as a result of the embargo while being noticeably catatonic when it comes to the persecution, jailing, or execution of political prisoners and of the Ladies in White (it’s fascinating seeing leftists turn on and off the compassion spigot at will). They will also forget -- deliberately so -- that the embargo does not apply to food or medicine, though the items have to be paid for with cash. Credit by U.S. banks is not going to be allowed, mostly because the Communist government has defaulted on previous foreign loans. Their stance is not too surprising when one takes into account that some liberals have denied the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge took place.

The regime is obviously crippled with the Venezuelan oil supply cut off. And Trump, through Marco Rubio, has set his sights on it, but unlike the Venezuelan and Iranian dictators, it has wisely not challenged the Americans to come and try to invade the island. Regardless, there are reports of demonstrations against the government, which are becoming more violent and more vengeful, carried out in the dead of night since the island goes entirely dark after sunset due to lack of energy. There are reports of at least one office of the Communist Party being torched. It’s a good start.

So if the government collapses, or is overthrown, don’t expect a peaceful transition of power as was the case in Czechoslovakia or Hungary or East Germany. Expect a bloodbath. Cubans are very vengeful. And they have decades of anger, suffering, and deprivation to fuel that overdue bloodbath. The rulers know this. If the regime makes a deal with Trump on time in order to obtain some oil it might, just might survive, albeit weakened, but if Trump and Rubio walk away and keep the pressure on, it’s the end.

Incidentally, notice that the demonstrations in Cuba are not anti-American (after all, the Cubans are not liberals). And they are not protesting the boycott.

And speaking of liberals, be prepared to see hordes of liberal white saviors with their prefabricated signs taking to the streets while claiming to speak for the Cuban people against Trump, just like they have been telling Iranian and Venezuelan exiles that they know better than the Venezuelans and Iranians themselves. I cannot tell you how many times liberals who cannot even speak Spanish and know nothing about pre-Castro history, nor Cuban culture, have lectured me about how wonderful life is in Cuba under the Communist dictatorship. For decades, liberals in America and other countries demonized Cuban-Americans, and attacked in one way or another Cuban-Americans who spoke out against the regime, from Paquito D’Rivera to Andy Garcia to Camila Cabello.

There exists one difference, though. Since the beginning, the Cuban dictatorship sent to the United States hundreds of agents as “refugees” to infiltrate Cuban-American organizations, and liberal ones as well (I suspect there were some in the Biden Administration), and for just plain espionage. It appears that some are already beginning to make noise over the present situation. For example, in an American Communist website, there is a photo of just such a group. Notice several things: one, almost all wearing red shirts, two, they have their raised clenched fist (the clenched fist as a Communist salute emerged in the 1930s as a response to the Nazi salute), third, their prefabricated signs have the picture of Che Guevara, and fourth, they refer to the embargo as the American blockade. “Blockade,” not an embargo, is the word that the regime has used on its people and foreign sympathizers to explain the shortages of everything, to give the impression that nothing can get through. I suspect that if the regime does fall, these agents will not return to Cuba.

And if the Cuban regime is overthrown, what then? Chaos. There is no organized resistance in the country that could take over. Possibly there may be a military coup d’etat. Possibly Cuban-Americans will step in. Either way, do not expect the new government to pay off the defaulted national debts and diplomatic agreements of the previous government.

As for the long run, a new constitution is ready that takes into account all the historical mistakes in governments, as well as the special Cuban circumstances.

But chaos or no chaos, anything will be an improvement over Communism.

Podcast thread for March 17

 

hope today was filled with great luck.

What is Trump’s true objective in the Iran war? U.S. targets provide a clue

 

• Strikes have increasingly targeted Iran’s internal security forces, used by the Islamic Republic to suppress public dissent.
• By all accounts, the campaign against Iran’s military assets has achieved success.

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department last week outlined a concise set of military objectives in President Trump’s war against Iran, claiming its ultimate goal is to dismantle Tehran’s ability to project power beyond its borders. Yet it may be targets the Pentagon has largely left unacknowledged that offer the clearest insight yet into Trump’s true intentions.

U.S. military strikes have focused on Iran’s ballistic missile, drone and nuclear programs, as well as its naval assets, according to U.S. Central Command. But strikes have also increasingly targeted Iran’s internal security forces, used by the Islamic Republic to suppress public dissent, according to an analysis from the Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project shared with The Times.

The strikes have targeted at least 123 headquarters, barracks and local bases operated by Iran’s paramilitary organizations, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Basij militia. Regional police forces, primarily in the capital region around Tehran and in western Iran, near areas dominated by Kurdish groups hostile to the Iranian government, have also been targeted.

Targeting Iran’s internal security forces

In the last week, U.S. military strikes have targeted at least 123 headquarters, barracks and local bases operated by Iran’s paramilitary organizations, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Basij militia.

Some of those groups are being armed and supported by the U.S. intelligence community, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly.

Nicholas Carl, with the Critical Threats Project, said the pattern indicates the campaign is already underway to set the conditions for a revolution.

“As we are going after these repressive institutions, we are degrading the ability of the regime to monitor its population, to repress its population,” Carl said. “And so it looks as though the strike campaign may be organized around trying to erode the ability of the regime to repress in those areas.”

Analysts said that strikes against internal forces could be greater than they have measured thus far, noting the difficulty of tracking targets in the war based on publicly available data due to an internet blackout strictly enforced by the Iranian government.

The quieter side of the U.S. campaign suggests a political strategy by the Trump administration that goes beyond simply containing the Iranian government, and may instead aim to lay the groundwork for its overthrow.

Trump and his top aides have been inconsistent in their messaging on their goals for the war, vacillating between calls for regime change and far shorter ambitions, such as an Islamic Republic that remains in power under leadership more acquiescent to the United States.

Before the war began, Trump was presented with an intelligence assessment that large-scale military action was unlikely to topple the Iranian government, two sources familiar with the assessment said. The assessment led analysts at the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon all to advise the White House against proceeding with the operation. The intelligence analysis was first reported by the Washington Post.

Greasing the wheels for domestic unrest, for insurgency or revolution could serve other strategic purposes for the Trump administration beyond effecting regime change, adding new sources of pressure on an Islamic Republic that, if still intact by war’s end, would face renewed internal pressures at a moment of historic weakness.

Rob Malley, lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and special U.S. envoy for Iran under President Biden, said that a sustained U.S. campaign that cripples Iran’s ability to maintain domestic control could mean “the regime collapses, in the sense that it can no longer, genuinely and effectively, govern the entirety of the country.”

“Right now, what Trump is saying suggests an extremely ambitious, extremely long-term, extremely perilous campaign that will only end with Iran’s surrender, and it’s very hard to see Iran surrendering,” Malley said. But the campaign may already be working. “Their communications have certainly been penetrated — they cannot meet without being targeted by Israel or the United States,” he added.

“Either the regime stays in place weakened, bloodied, finding it harder to govern a more fragmented, chaotic country,” Malley continued, “or the regime no longer can govern.”

An Israeli official did not deny that internal security forces were being targeted, although the official said that Israel was focused on assassinating Iran’s political and security leadership — “tiers one, two and three,” the official said. The vast majority of the strikes against internal security services thus far have been conducted by the United States.

“Our goal is to weaken the ayatollah regime, to a point where the Iranian people can choose their fate,” the official told The Times. “It’s still not at the point where they can do that, but there is work still to be done.”

By all accounts, the campaign against Iran’s military assets has achieved success. Iranian ballistic missile attacks against Israel and U.S. forces and allies in the region have decreased by 90% after just a week of combat, Defense officials said. Drone strikes have decreased by 83%. Over 30 Iranian vessels, including those used as launching pads for drones and aircraft, have been destroyed — a significant number for Iran’s aged and ill-funded naval fleet.

Trump could simply declare victory based on these results alone, said Elliott Abrams, who served as Trump’s special representative for Iran in 2020.

“They will get weaker as they use up resources and we bomb more and more relevant sites. Already air traffic is starting up again,” Abrams said, noting that commercial flights in the region began resuming this weekend. “So I doubt that the president will need a protracted campaign.”

But that would leave the regime in place, leaving open the possibility of a revanchist Islamic Republic that could reconstitute its military and crack down further on democratic protesters — an outcome that could create political backlash for Trump, Abrams said, after losing U.S. service members in combat.

“The outcome remains entirely in doubt — regime collapse after a wave of protests, civil war, a deal that leaves the regime in place behind a new face,” Abrams added. “A real test for Trump would arise if there is a wave of protests as in January, and the regime again starts shooting. Can he do nothing? Unlikely.”

In his initial speech announcing the start of the campaign, Trump addressed the people of Iran, telling them to shelter in their homes until the U.S. bombing campaign concludes.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” the president said. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help. But you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond.”

But the president’s message grew muddled over the course of the last week, after he offered conflicting goals in a series of interviews with reporters.

He at once said he was expecting to hand-select the next ayatollah, after assassinating Iran’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in the opening salvo of the war. In other interviews, he said that the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign had killed many of the potential leaders that Washington could have worked with.

On Friday, Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” He did not specify whether he was referring to a surrender of Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile program, or on control over the country itself, and in a subsequent interview, said it could simply mean “when Iran no longer has the ability to fight.”

Over the last week, Kurdish leaders have shared accounts of Trump and his top aides reaching out to them and encouraging their involvement in the war, including a ground incursion in western Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan. But the president seems to have placed that effort on hold for the time being. “The war is complicated enough without having — getting the Kurds involved,” he told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One.

At Central Command headquarters on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that Trump maintains his promise to the Iranian people at the outset of the war, that a time will come for an uprising.

“No one’s done more than President Trump to reopen the opportunity for those who want a free Iran to do so,” Hegseth said. “Ultimately, it’s common sense, as he said up front, don’t go out and protest while bombs are dropping inside Tehran and elsewhere. There will come a moment where he determines, or they determine, that it’s time to seize that advantage.”

Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution and an expert on Iran, said she expects the government to survive the U.S. assault, “still easily able to outgun and outmaneuver any challenges from the streets.”

But a concerted, prolonged campaign could change that assessment.

“Of course, months of full-scale war certainly could also break the system,” Maloney said, adding: “I don’t think the short-term result would be a stable transition to a more liberal system — but rather a collapse of the state itself, and at least for some period of time, a dangerous vacuum of power and order in the heart of the Middle East.”

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-03-08/what-is-trumps-true-objective-in-iran-war-u-s-targets-provide-clue

The World Better Get Ready for the New Dark Ages

Townhall 

It probably won’t happen during the lifetime of us old codgers who are nearing the end, but we are definitely witnessing the beginnings of it. History usually moves slowly. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it didn’t fall in a day. The barbarians—Goths, Visigoths, Lombards, Huns, Franks, Democrats, etc.—started coming in around the 3rd century, and some maybe even sooner. Rome could have stopped them, of course; nothing is truly historically “inevitable,” but Rome didn’t stop them, and the last Roman emperor was ejected in 476 A.D. The barbarians had definitely arrived by then.

We popularly call the next few centuries of European history the “Dark Ages.” Historians of the period don’t especially like that term, but it’s stuck. We consider “classical” Greece and Rome high periods in European history. But the descent after Rome into a “darker” period under uncivilized barbarians and tyrannical governments was not one of Europe’s finest. But again, it didn’t arrive overnight, and Europe didn’t get out of it overnight, either. Several centuries elapsed before the continent began to truly prosper, expand, and show its might. It takes a while to clear away a jungle; and the jungle always seems to want to grow back. And it will, especially if people of barbarian mentality are running the show. And that appears to be increasingly the case in Western Civilization today.

Here is a recent Breitbart headline that caught my attention: “British Govt. Plan to Scrap Jury Trials Clears First Hurdle; Starmer Stooge Spins Dismantling of Rights as ‘Modernization.’” So, eliminating one of Western Civilization’s most basic rights, one of its greatest gifts to mankind—the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers—is “modernization.” The Romans had jury trials; their abolition is one reasons for the rise of the “Dark Ages.” And now, the first steps are being taken in that direction again.

And from England, the home of Magna Carta and John Ball, of all places.  

Neither the Greeks nor the Romans were perfect, of course. There has never been, nor will there ever be on this earth, a perfect people or perfect civilization. But there is no question that Greek philosophy and democracy, coupled with Roman law and republicanism, were great advancements in the mind, government, and civilizing of human beings. Add Judeo-Christianmorality, which was spread out of the “pax Romana,” and Western Civilization had all the makings of as “perfect” a civilization as imperfect human beings could probably ever create.  

The respect for life and property that these three treasures gave us producedthe greatest freedoms and prosperity the world has ever seen.  Christianity led Europe out of the Dark Ages and barbarian control, and the Europeans, slowly but surely (with a huge boost from the American Founding Fathers), rediscovered Greek democracy and philosophy, and Roman republicanism and law. Yes, it took a while—several centuries. But it happened, and culminated in the greatest country the world has ever seen—the United States of America.

Our roots came out of an England that now apparently wants to “modernize” and burn those roots. The jungle, oh, the jungle. It never gives up.

The gifts of Greece, Rome, and Judeo-Christianity built Western Civilization. But now, one by one, they are slowly being dismantled and torn down.  Beginning with the French Enlightenment, through German“rationalism,” and with the assistance of Darwinian materialism and Marxist “scientific socialism,” the supreme morality that Christianity gave us is being whittled away for…a return to barbarism. We no longer respect human life. So many claim to not know the difference between a man and woman, and marriage and the family are eroding rapidly. Men do that which is right in theirown eyes. Live and let live. Might makes right.  The hammers have beenpounding against the foundation of Western Civilization for generations now. And they’ve just about destroyed. The jungle arrives…

And as with Rome, the barbarians have come into both Europe and America, at the invitation of those who know nothing about history. Immigration—controlled and regulated to properly assimilate the migrants into society—isnot a bad thing, and indeed, helped build America. But throwing the doors open to any and every mentality and ethos, to people with no heritage or history of Greek democracy, Roman law, or Judeo-Christian morality, is a recipe for a return to the Dark Ages.  These people the Democrats want in America are the very kinds of people who overran and destroyed Rome. And it was “leaders” in Rome like those in the Democratic Party who let it happen. If it continues, how can we avoid another “Dark Ages?”

And now the Marxists, with their love of totalitarian government and hatred of God-given rights, have arisen to “modernize” the system. I don’t know if England will truly scrap the jury system; I only know there are some in England, as in America, who want to control what “rights” the people have.  That isn’t Western Civilization. That isn’t the Declaration of Independence. That is fascist, or communist, totalitarianism. When a Democratic senator, a few months ago, said that our rights come from government, not God, that was a total repudiation of the very fundamentals of American civilization.  

It’s what the Democrats want. A barbarism which they hope will eventually give them control. Totalitarian government and ethical subjectivism. A new Dark Ages.

So, they have, and continue to, attack Judeo-Christian morality. They preach “democracy” all the while building and striving for a totalitarian government their elite will command. And now, “modernization” means destruction of Roman law and the system of jury trial. It won’t happen overnight, of course; history doesn’t work that way.

But if we continue on this present course, a new “Dark Ages” is inevitable. The king and his court will love it; the elite always do. But the mass of peasants will suffer. As they always do.

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Senate Will Only Pass SAVE America Act If Trump And Thune Impose Consequences For Opposing It

The ‘Johnson Treatment’ was ‘an incredible, potent mixture of persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages.’

The Federalist

The leadership shrug is a remarkable new political gesture.

Members of Congress who declared their opposition to Lyndon Johnson’s most important legislative priorities tended to be woken by phone calls in the middle of the night from an angry president. Johnson was fond of physiological imagery, so members of his party who declared their independence would hear that he planned to cut their throats or alter their sexual anatomy. In profane rants, holdouts learned that federal spending for things like highways was about to become quite scarce in their district or their state, and everyone back home was going to know who had caused the sudden money drought with his stupidity.

In person, the “Johnson Treatment” – “an incredible, potent mixture of persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages” – was known for its physical aggression, as the 6’4″ president leaned forward and shoved his face into deeply uncomfortable proximity with men who weren’t getting with the program. When he met with members of Congress, Johnson wasn’t asking.

Last week, Senate Republicans announced that they just don’t have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act, an election security bill with measures that Republican voters have strongly supported for years. “That’s just a function of math, and there isn’t anything I can do about that,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. This is how Republicans are pretending that Congress works: Leaders ask every member what they feel like doing, and then the members all say how they want to vote, and then leadership accepts their decision and the conversation ends. A caucus is a counting mechanism, and can’t be anything else. Thune’s “there isn’t anything I can do about that” is a gesture of make-believe helplessness that defies 250 years of legislative history.

So Republican voters want it, the Republican president wants it, and Senate Republicans just don’t feel passing it. Sorry! We tried. You know without looking that Lisa Murkowski is refusing to vote with her party. It never costs her anything to break with her party, so it’s an easy choice for her.

But the enforcement of party discipline is historically normal behavior for American presidents. Democrats who tried to limit the New Deal found the Roosevelt administration campaigning against them in primary elections that historians describe as the “Purge of 1938.” Several years into the endless government overreach of the Great Depression, exhausted voters mostly rejected Roosevelt’s intervention. But a president met resistance with a fight, telling voters that his agenda was opposed by elected officials that he asked them to replace.

Presidents have also historically used the other kind of persuasion to get their legislation passed. The 13th Amendment, banning slavery, failed in the House of Representatives in 1864. President Abraham Lincoln got the votes he needed in the House by handing out promises of comfortable government jobs as post-congressional employment. As one historical website puts it, “the president and Secretary of State William Seward were willing to strong-arm border Unionists and horse-trade with reluctant Democrats to secure their votes or at least their abstentions in order to lower the threshold for a two-thirds majority. The administration took advantage of the timing of the lame-duck Congress by offering patronage jobs — and in one case an ambassadorship to Denmark — to defeated Democrats.”

At least to some degree, Lincoln bought the 13th Amendment. “The greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America,” the Rep. Thaddeus Stevens is often (probably incorrectly) quoted as saying. Lincoln didn’t merely ask Congress if they felt like sending the 13th Amendment to the states for ratification. You don’t have to admire the sleaziness of political horsetrading to see that legislation doesn’t just happen.

If the SAVE America Act is worth passing, it’s worth fighting for. It can’t just be lobbed at the Senate by passive measures. It’s time for the Johnson Treatment to get an update, and it’s time for Republican quislings to pay a price for their uselessness. An administration gets the legislation it pushes Congress to pass.

No, Republicans Don’t Need To ‘Change’ The Senate Rules To Pass The SAVE America Act

‘I think a lot of reporters and a lot of Americans think bills pass at 60 votes. Every bill passes the Senate with a simple majority; it’s just a question of how you break the filibuster,’ Rachel Bovard explained.

The Federalist

The Senate is set to bring the SAVE America Act to the floor this week, and the impending action has prompted corporate media to deploy deceptive talking points about upper chamber rules. The election integrity measure, whose key components on voter ID and proof of citizenship are widely popular with Republican, independent, and Democrat voters, has faced a headwind of false narratives since its introduction.

Now some members of the propaganda press are misleading readers about what it would take to pass the legislation, with several outlets framing the issue as though Republicans would need to “change” Senate rules in order to pass the bill with a simple majority (which would likely be the only way the legislation is passed).

The Hill’s Jared Gans wrote that “Trump and conservatives in Congress have pushed for Republicans to change Senate rules to implement a ‘talking filibuster.’”

The Washington Post claimed the legislation “faces unified opposition from Democrats, meaning that the Senate can’t pass it unless Republicans change the rules and eliminate the filibuster.”

NBC News’ Sahil Kapur and Frank Thorp V reported that “years ago, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., explored the possibility of using a ‘talking filibuster’ when Democrats were in charge of the Senate and frustrated by relentless Republican filibusters. He eventually concluded that it wasn’t feasible to get around the 60-vote threshold without changing the Senate rules.”

But Rachel Bovard, vice president of programs at Conservative Partnership Institute, told The Federalist that that portrayal fundamentally misunderstands how Senate procedure works.

“So everything in the Senate prior to cloture being filed on it is at simple majority,” Bovard told The Federalist. “What a filibuster is, is you’re forcing them to actually come physically delay the vote.”

At that point, she explained, there are two ways to end that delay. One option is filing cloture, which requires 60 votes under Senate Rule 22 to cut off debate. The other is to force senators of the minority to hold the floor continuously and keep talking. That’s what is known as the talking filibuster.

“I think a lot of reporters and a lot of Americans think bills pass at 60 votes. Every bill passes the Senate with a simple majority; it’s just a question of how you break the filibuster,” Bovard explained.

“You can either do it mechanically under the Senate’s Rule 22 by invoking cloture at 60 votes, or you can break a filibuster by physical exhaustion [a talking filibuster]. Either way, bills always pass at simple majority once the filibuster has been broken.”

It’s the same point made by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, in an exclusive letter obtained by The Federalist. Roy explained that so long as all Senate Republicans who support the legislation are present (that number being 50), and there is a quorum, the Senate must either be voting or a member must be speaking — aka the “talking filibuster.”

“If Republicans stick together, and the minority exhaust their opportunities to speak in opposition or give up, a final vote on passage of the bill occurs automatically at a majority threshold,” Roy said.

In other words, the Senate’s own existing rules allow for this process, and there is no rule “change” required.

Bovard said a talking filibuster would also force the Senate to do what it is supposed to do best, that is, deliberate and negotiate.

“A talking filibuster forces the Senate to start seeing if it can shake loose a deal that seven Democrats might support,” Bovard said. “It’s about forcing the minority to talk to the majority on a bill where both sides would never engage otherwise.”

In that scenario, Republicans may be able to get the 60 votes needed for cloture, but the talking filibuster would also give Republicans another way to pass the legislation without having 60 votes.

Bovard says one reason for the misconception about changing the rules could be due to Democrats’ 2022 effort to use a talking filibuster to pass their election legislation. Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tried to ram through Democrats’ Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. In a bid to avoid Republicans using a talking filibuster (which under current Senate rules would, in part, permit each senator to speak on two separate times for as long as they can physically do so) to prolong or delay a vote, Schumer suggested changing the rules that would limit each senator to two speeches on the final passage of the legislation while stopping other tactics like adding amendments, motions, or points of order (which would give Senators additional speaking time).

Bovard said because of Schumer’s efforts to actually change filibuster rules to make it easier for Democrats, there are “a lot of people who say, ‘Well, because Democrats tried to propose a rules change to do this, then a rules change must be required now.’  But that is not true at all. A talking filibuster has always been a part of the Senate’s architecture, since the Senate’s inception. In 2022, Democrats realized how physically and procedurally difficult it would be, and tried to change the rules to make it easier on themselves. But Republicans are not proposing that now — they’re just proposing using the procedure as the institution currently allows.”