A new precedent was not established in the U.S.Senate today

Today the U.S. Senate majority changed the Senate rules to ban filibusters for presidential appointments (apart from Supreme Court nominations).

Sounds radical, and the Democrats who support this had mostly spoken out in defense of the filibuster eight years ago.

Also, the Senate has never changed its rules mid-session.

But it's the Republicans who actually changed the rules at the start of President Obama's presidency. Not the way the rules are written. Instead they changed the traditional way the filibuster has been used--that is, to block the appointment of a presidential appointee you believe isn't qualified for the post.

Instead the Republican leadership decided to use the mechanism of the filibuster to try to nullify the results of the presidential election. The Senate's rules protect the rights of the minority party. They were not intended to permit the minority party to rule the country as if it had won the election.

The Constitution obviously intends for presidential appointments to be confirmed or denied by 51% or more of the Senate. Not 60%. The Republicans' abuse of the rules--unlike how either Democrats or Republicans had applied them before President Clinton was elected, and in spades since President Obama was elected--that abuse gave a minority of less than 50% of the Senate a veto not only over presidential appointments but over letting agencies function whose leadership appointments are being blocked.

And now they're also using the filibuster to block nominations over unrelated issues, just because their veto power gives them a lever.

This amounts to trying to run America as if they'd won the last two presidential elections.

Which is not just intolerable--it's also the unprecedented change made in the how the Senate works by the Republicans five years ago, which the Democratic leadership has now finally recognized...and dealt with.

You can be sure the Republicans will abuse their majority status if they win control of the Senate again, just as they've been abusing their minority status. They will wield today's rules change ruthlessly. But there's no guarantee they wouldn't do that anyway--especially given their behavior during the past half-decade.

But even more importantly, if the Senate majority hadn't done what they did today they would simply be continuing to cede control-- a systematic, aggressive control--of the United States Senate by the side that lost the last election. They lost the House, except their gerrymandering and voter suppression gave them a House majority. They lost the Senate and the presidential race outright.

And today their determination to practice minority rule was thwarted in one major area.

One trait the Republican leadership has shown consistently is the belief that Democrats are weak, Republicans are strong. So Republicans can push the Democrats around with impunity because they have a monopoly on manly toughness.

The Imperial Japanese high command made the same mistake about their enemy in 1942.

"Jammed down our throats"

Politicians love to talk about things being "jammed down our throats." It's such a violent metaphor. The thought of having your airway blocked..I know this, more or less, from my scuba diving training. At one point they had us kneel on the bottom of Monterey Bay, then came around from behind and turned our air off. It was safe--they had assistant instructors ready to save our lives if we screwed up--but believe me, if you can't breathe, that fact trums every single other thing in life.

Now in politics, this phrase is used to complain about rights being trampled--by a legislative majority acting contrary (it's claimed) to public opinion, by "unelected judges," or the like.

Which raises the whole majority-minority rights thing.

The Republican legislators demand what amounts to a veto on all legislation and appointments that require Senate approval. It should go without saying that they didn't regard this as the definition of minority rights when they were in power. When they were in power they demanded an "up or down vote" on everything they were willing to put to a vote and not lock up in committees.

Their justification is that the polls are on their side.

But even it that were true, it means the Republicans are saying we should become a direct democracy, with legislative decisions determined by polling.

And whether that's desirable or not, it's against the Constitution.

So if they want direct democracy/democracy by polling, they need to propose discarding our Constitution--which they've done, in effect, by their words and deeds.

It's only legitimate to use "jammed down our throats" politically when the majority in control of Congress does something the minority objects to--and in a way that's unconstitutional. It's more appropriate when the minority uses congressional rules in a way never envisioned when those rules were created, in order to block the majority.

The term is also used when people object to rulings by "unelected" judges that run contrary to the will of the people (as evinced by either opinion polls or noisy demonstrations). Again, this isn't legitimate unless the judge's ruling turns out to be unsconstitutional--not when it's simply unpopular.

Again the undercurrent is an unspoken demand that the country be run by opinion poll. So it should be obvious why this is unspoken, since it's so radical (and unworkable)--no genuine conservative would ever propose overthrowing the Constitution in favor of opinion polls. But self-styled conservatives use this appeal all the time, hoping that no one will point out how radical and completely unAmerican it is.

Conservatives among our founders--like Alexander Hamilton, for one--knew that mob rule led straight to the French Revolution and its barbaric excesses. They'd be spinning in their graves if they knew that their supposed descendants were sounding more and more like Robespierre and his gang.