Ultimately, a small group of centrists — Republicans and Democrats —
could find the muscle to hold the Senate at bay until bipartisan
solutions can be found. But for the foreseeable future, Republicans,
wounded and eager to show they have not been stripped of all power, are
far more likely to unify against the Democrats who humiliated them in
such dramatic fashion.
“This is the most important and most dangerous restructuring of Senate
rules since Thomas Jefferson wrote them at the beginning of our
country,” declared Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee.
“It’s another raw exercise of political power to permit the majority to
do whatever it wants whenever it wants to do it.”
