So you’d think that under Trump there would’ve been more successful filibusters than ever given Democratic opposition.
Nope.
The vast majority of cloture votes passed — the Senate already nuked the filibuster for things Republicans care about
During the Trump era, there were an historic number of cloture motions filed in the Senate: 529 of them. 466 of them got votes — 93% of them passed
Compare to Obama’s first term: only 70% passed the first half, 57% in the
Why? In 2013, Senate Dems nuked the 60 vote threshold to get past a filibuster on nominees, except for SCOTUS, but left it for legislation
But when controlling Congress and the WH, the GOP didn’t move much legislation. They got what they wanted
So when Mitch McConnell says “no no, you have to keep the filibuster for legislation” it’s because he knows that it doesn’t matter when the GOP is a majority
The filibuster isn’t a useful tool for Democratic minorities — just Republicans
This essay is brought to you by several hours of combing through cloture motions for this spreadsheet, which shows a major drop in the filibuster blocking cloture after 2013 — with one exception highlighted, which I’ll explain in a second