The republicans have the senate but not a supermajority so as usual nothing is going to happen
Filibuster. Why does it exist? To stop things from happening. Things will continue to not happen.
Also republicans hate government. They don’t want the government to be doing things. Mitch McConnell will not bring bills to the floor. That’s what he did last time. He physically hoarded them in his office.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a government shutdown or two in the next couple of years. The margins are close enough that the democrats will be able to raise a stink about the budget. That could cause some problems. It seems like the republicans hold everything but not by an insane amount. Predict a lot of gridlock coming up. Even less happening than usual and the things that do happen either being not very fun or purely utilitarian required to keep stuff going level stuff
Also I will say that if your local congressperson is a Republican, still write them letters about bills you care about and tell your family and friends to do so as well. Especially if they’re a moderate. Especially if it’s an issue relevant to people in your region.
Don’t tell them in your letters or calls that you’re not a Republican. Don’t tell them what your party affiliation is. Emphasize how much you love your region and your country and gosh darn it would be so important to me if this or that didn’t happen sir. Similar rules apply if you get the opportunity to meet them in person. No matter what you’re an everyday person totally relatable to a conservative and gosh darn sir you’re just so concerned about what it’ll do to this great city of ours so what are you planning to do about it
And again, get all your family and friends to do the same if you can.
I want to say in response to a certain kind of sentiment that no I’m not asking you to “appeal to the morality of your oppressors”. I’m saying pretend to be one of them for just long enough that they’ll listen to you. Bring up something they’ll like. If you’re a person of faith, maybe bring that up. They don’t need to know which faith. If you have a traditionally blue collar job, bring that up. If you have kids, bring that up. If you’re a law student, bring that up. If you were born and raised in your district, if you or your family own a business, if you hunt for your food, if it’s relevant and a conservative would trust you more if you brought it up, bring it up. They don’t need to know you’re queer, they don’t need to know your race, they don’t need to know your political party. You can however heavily imply that you might be the sort of person who would vote for them and wouldn’t it be a shame if they pissed that kind of person off
it's supposed to be their job to listen to what their constituents say. make them do their jobs! take up their time and resources! even if you don't get the vote you want out of them you can still be a pain in the ass!
And remember that because it’s so tight, there will be issues that die because just one or two Republican senators decided they were going to break ranks. It won’t always be as dramatic as McCain saving the ACA - a lot of the time, it will mean the bill wont make it off McConnell’s desk because he knows he doesn’t have the votes and they hate getting publicly embarrassed by having their bills be defeated by their own people, and the media won’t even mention it having been considered in the first place.
So absolutely lean on the above sentiments as hard as you possibly can to convince your congresscritter that maybe, on this one issue, it’s not worth pissing off the folks back home so they’ll quietly tell Mitch they’re not onboard and it’ll die before anyone realizes it was there.
