2013 Senate Democrats Confirmed Betsy DeVos and Will Confirm Jeff Sessions, Scott Pruitt, Steve Mnuchin and Every One of Trump's Cabinet Nominees
Yes, Democrats.
Senate Democrats can talk all night long on The Senate floor in opposition to Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions and every other Trump Cabinet nominee.
But it is useless.
Senate Democrats, in 2013, stripped 2016 Democrats of all power to oppose Donald Trump and effectively confirmed his entire slate of Cabinet nominees. .
Drunk with "Majority Power" Democrats, on November 21, 2013 "nuked" the Senate filibuster for 1,183 Executive Branch appointees including Cabinet Secretaries and District and Circuit Court Judges, allowing confirmations to happen with only 51, rather than 60 votes.
Seemed a good idea at the time. President Obama's appointees were being blocked left and right by brilliant strategist and "Master Obstructionist" Mitch McConnell, then Republican Minority Leader of The Senate and appointments and empty seats were backing up.
Had Democrats not "nuked" the filibuster for Cabinet Secretaries in 2013, Democrats would have been able to successfully block Betsy DeVos, Rex Tillerson and everyone else forcing Donald Trump to go back to the drawing board and come up appointees that would have been acceptable to at least 8 Senate Democrats, in order to avoid a filibuster.
Instead, he's going to get everything and everyone he wants, regardless of their level of competence and America is, thus, changed for the next 4 years.
Something for Republicans to remember as they ponder pulling their own "Nuclear Option" to kill the Senate filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, a move that was considered too anti-democratic, too extreme and too dangerous even for the zealous "Class of 2013" Senate Democrats.
Had these Democrats known that the next President would be a reality tv star determined to choose the least appropriate and least qualified Cabinet in the history of the country, perhaps they would have given pause.
But in the "what goes around, comes around" scheme of things, I wonder what current Senate Republicans will be thinking as they sit helplessly by watching our next President, Socialist President Bernie Sanders, or someone perhaps even more "radical", replace Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts with the most radical liberal Justices anyone can find.
Live by "nuking the filibuster", die by "nuking the filibuster", but in the meantime, as long as the Senate filibuster does still exist for Supreme Court nominees, Democrats should focus on doing something that they can do and stop Donald Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch.