Yesterday, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune reluctantly moved forward with a vote on the SAVE America Act, despite Democrats’ desperate efforts to demonize the legislation.
The Cheating Party has alternatively claimed that the bill is racist because black and brown people are too stupid to obtain an ID to vote; that it requires a really expensive passport to vote; that married women won’t be able to vote because their surnames have changed; that it’s a voter-suppression bill; that it’s blah, blah, blah.
These, of course, are all lies from the pits of hell. But don’t fret, dear reader, for I’ve come up with a simple and helpful way to tell when the Democrats are lying about the SAVE America Act: If their lips are moving, they’re lying.
Despite Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his fellow Democrats’ worst efforts, though, these lies don’t appear to be getting through to the American people. On the contrary, a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll told us once again what we already knew: that in a deeply divided America, the spirit of the SAVE America Act is still wildly popular. According to the poll, 71% of Americans support the legislation; 80% want noncitizens removed from voter rolls; 60% say it is common sense; and for those on the Left who continually try to dismiss the need for the SAVE America Act, 58% say voter fraud does indeed exist.
“We will not let Donald Trump ram this bill through the Senate,” vowed Schumer. “Not this week, not ever.”
And yesterday, we saw the Republican response: a phony debate with a lot of harrumphing. As The Federalist reports, “While Senate Republican leaders say the process will allow plenty of time for talking, the ‘talking filibuster’ is dead on arrival — and so ultimately is the SAVE America Act. A former congressman and White House Chief of Staff told The Federalist that the alleged support by some Senate Republicans is ‘disingenuous at best.’”
One version of the bill, put forth by Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt, heaped onto it a couple of amendments regarding other wildly popular measures: no mutilation of children, and no women playing in men’s sports. This, though, might just muddy the water.
How important is the SAVE America Act? This important: President Trump took time out recently from crushing the Iranian regime to correct humble scribes like me from using the shorthand name of this vital legislation: “For all of the Fake News out there, it’s called THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, not the SAVE ACT. Nobody knows what the Save Act means!!!”
Here, I’ll respectfully disagree with the president. By now, everyone with an IQ above room temperature knows — or should know — what the SAVE America Act is. The problem with this legislation isn’t marketing; it’s senatorial spine, and it starts at the top.
Not once have I heard Majority Leader John Thune say anything even remotely resembling, “The SAVE America Act is crucial to securing our elections, it is wildly popular with the American people, and its passage is our top priority in the Senate.” Nor have I heard him say anything like, “If Senate Democrats insist on continuing to deny the overwhelming will of the American people, both Republican and Democrat, I will use every procedural tool at my disposal to thoroughly and painfully expose them before the American people.”
Instead, Establishment John, who still seems to be taking orders from his mentor, the Trump-deranged Mitch McConnell, has been dragged kicking and screaming to this point of impasse. The Senate’s leading conservatives — men like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton and Mike Lee and Josh Hawley — should be organizing a coup against Thune and his feckless leadership, and hardy South Dakotans should be organizing a recall of this Republican fifth columnist.
And what of despicable Alaska RINO Lisa Murkowski, who voted with Joe Biden a sickening 67% of the time and voted with Democrats last night in opposing this wildly popular legislation? Perhaps she sided with The Cheating Party because she understands a thing or two about electoral treachery. Perhaps she understands that she owes her very senatorial existence to the rotten leftist trick known as ranked-choice voting. And what of outgoing (good riddance!) North Carolina squish Thom Tillis, who didn’t even have the guts to cast a vote?
Over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson has a razor-thin majority, and yet he somehow managed to get the SAVE America Act through his chamber. What’s Thune’s lame excuse for getting just 51 votes in a 53-47 Senate? Where on earth is the America First version of Lyndon Johnson, the Master of the Senate, when the Republic needs him?
On The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, they’re downplaying the importance of honest elections and chicken-littling about the prospect of Senate Republicans doing away with the filibuster. They write:
For partisan hype, it’s hard to beat the Senate debate this week on the SAVE America Act. President Trump says the legislation is a salvation from mass voter fraud. Sen. Chuck Schumer says it’s an effort at mass voter suppression, “Jim Crow 2.0.” Neither is reality. Also, Republicans don’t have the votes to clear the Senate’s filibuster. And if they bully the bill through anyway, Democrats eyeing the end of the 60-vote rule will quietly celebrate.
Few are suggesting that Republicans do away with the filibuster, but what if they did, just this once, make an exception for a wildly popular piece of legislation whose only encumbrance is Cheating Democrats who refuse to honor the clear-as-day will of the American people?
In other words: If not now, when?
Never, say the Journal’s editors. “Mr. Schumer might make new states out of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, meaning four new Democratic Senators,” they warn us. “He might add Justices to the Supreme Court. In exchange for laying the groundwork, Republicans get … the SAVE America Act? No thanks.”
What the Journal’s editors are conveniently ignoring here, though, is the Grand-Canyonesque difference in voter support for honest elections versus their support for Puerto Rican statehood and court-packing. If Senate Democrats dared play that awful hand, they’d be electorally tarred and feathered for it.
Besides, when it comes to the filibuster, it’s not as if the Democrats haven’t already incrementally done away with it. They’ve already crossed the filibuster’s Rubicon for judicial appointments. So it’s not as if Democrats will, if and when they return to power in the Senate, exercise restraint and honor its traditions.
Instead, they’ll fart in the general direction of their polite Republican colleagues and do whatever suits them.
Sadly, we’re getting the government we deserve. And we’re getting it good and hard.
