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. 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 restored: to allow the minority to influence legislation, after which the full Senate could vote. At the very least, this would force legitimate debate in, formerly, “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

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