If I understand it, the argument FOR the filibuster is that it protects minority rights from majority overreach. It used to be to allow the minority to influence legislation but now has become a tool that allows the minority to STOP legislation.

How about this for thinking outside the box: Replace the filibuster’s 60 vote rule with a new Senate rule. We’ve heard about the “majority of the majority” rule to bring a bill to the House floor. How about a “majority of the minority” rule to bring a bill to the Senate floor?

After 2018, McConnell wouldn’t allow Pelosi’s bills to the Senate floor specifically because he knew just enough Republican senators would side with Democrats and pass popular bills he didn’t want. But if a majority of the minority could override the Senate leader’s de facto veto and force popular bills to the floor for debate, the legislative logjam would break and the original purpose of the filibuster would be revived: to allow the minority to influence legislation, after which the full Senate could debate and vote. Superfluous amendments could be quickly voted down, separating the wheat from the chaff.

More importantly, future Democratic minority influence would be protected, as would any Republican minority.

Would this make the legislative process messier? Think of that old adage about making sausage. Messy, but it tastes so good. Forcing the legislature to do their job and craft bipartisan legislation cannot be a bad thing. What we have today is terrible, and it doesn’t work, but we keep trying. It's the popular definition of insanity.

At the very least, this would force a legitimate public debate in the Senate, formerly known as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” The public would see and judge for themselves the serious senators and the fools.

Representative democracies are supposed to be about free and open debate. Tell me what I am missing here.