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DEMOCRATS CAVED IN THE SHUTDOWN BECAUSE OF THE FILIBUSTER
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Corey Robin
November 12, 2025
Jacobin
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_ For Democrats, the main issue in the shutdown wasn’t electoral
backlash — it was the filibuster. Leadership feared its removal,
viewing it as a safeguard to keep the party’s rising left wing in
check. _
The leadership of the Democratic Party wanted to preserve the
filibuster for one reason: it checks anyone who defies party
orthodoxy., Photo: Daniel Heuer / Bloomberg // Jacobin
Why did the Democrats cave in on the shut down? It seems clear that
the main issue was not electoral backlash, since most of the senators
who caved are not up for reelection, and the politics were trending in
the Democrats’ favor, or at least not against them.
The main issue was the filibuster. There was growing pressure from
Donald Trump on the Republicans to get rid of it, and the Democratic
leadership had every reason to fear its elimination. Why?
It has very little to do with preserving their power while they are in
the minority; that ship has obviously sailed.
The Democratic leadership doesn’t want to get rid of the filibuster
for the same reason the Republican leadership doesn’t want to get
rid of it: The filibuster allows the leadership of both parties to
keep their radical flanks at bay. Chuck Schumer needs the filibuster
to protect himself from the Bernie Sanders wing in the Senate and the
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) wing in the House: if you can’t get
to sixty, Bernie and AOC, we have to follow the lead of Joe Manchin
and Kyrsten Sinema. Same goes for John Thune to whoever inhabits the
radical role at any given moment in the GOP.
You have to read the media coverage on this issue carefully. Usually,
the blah blah blah of filibuster reportage is about the party worrying
what happens when it is in the minority or individual senators
worrying about losing their individual power. That’s the buzz of
Broderism, a style of reporting that’s a holdover from the last
century.
The real moment of truth comes in a nugget like this, from an article
in the _New York Times_
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November 4, which got lost amid the excitement about the Zohran
Mamdani election:
In reality, the filibuster also serves Republicans as a handy check on
a president who sometimes takes stances that carry substantial risk or
defy party orthodoxy, an excuse for Senate Republicans to avoid doing
things they don’t see as sound policy or politics without
infuriating Mr. Trump.
For Trump, swap in Trump’s most rabid allies and foot soldiers in
the Senate and the House — or Schumer’s and Hakeem Jeffries’s
enemies in the Senate and the House — and you get a pretty clear
sense of why the leaderships of both parties need the filibuster: It
checks anyone who “defies party orthodoxy,” while providing “an
excuse to avoid doing things.”
_[COREY ROBIN is the author of __The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism
from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump_
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and a contributing editor at Jacobin.]_
_Jacobin_‘s fall issue, “Borders,” is out now. Follow this link
to get a discounted subscription to _our beautiful print quarterly._
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* Chuck Schumer
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* Senate
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* Democratic Party
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* Bernie Sanders
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* AOC
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* Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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* Hakim Jeffries
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* House of Representatives
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* Democrats
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* Government Shutdown
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* Shutdown
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* filibuster
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* Elections 2026
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* 2026 Midterms
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