There were 54 votes in favor of enacting the January 6 Commission, and 35 opposed, but because our rules are completely bananas that means that the 35 WON THE VOTE. The filibuster must go. A Tweet by Brian Schatz @brianschatz United States Senator from Hawaii. Dad. Climate Hawk. Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Chief Deputy Whip. ÜT: 19.72105,-155.087417 brianschatz.com

I was going to say that the headline in the LA Times says it all but it really doesn’t. Driving home last Friday, I heard the news on NPR, and it wasn’t a shock or even a surprise. Still, I was instantly outraged and I turned off the radio – turned off is probably too mild – but I still couldn’t shake the deep sense of betrayal I felt. At first at the 34 Senators who voted against looking into what happened, not so much as looking into what happened as much as to even acknowledge the insurrection and put it on the record. My sense of betrayal spread like an oil slick, sliming out from the 34 Senators that voted against it, then the eleven cowards, including two Democrats, that didn’t even have the guts to show up for the vote, the guts to say “Fuck you America, I’m voting to protect the traitors.” My sense of being betrayed spread to the Senators who say they are our friends and want to vote the way 67% of Americans want but the rules won’t let them, then, irrationally, my sense of betrayal spread to our the entire Government.

My whole life – well since about the first grade – I been told to trust the Government and, deep under my cynicism I do (or want to, at least). Still, increasingly, I feel the government has betrayed us. Not The Government, really, because The Government isn’t real, only the people in it are real and, if they don’t act for us, the Governed, if they only act for their own self-interest or for their corporate benefactors, then then this whole democracy thing is a charade and I am increasingly worried that has come to pass. Our country has a long history of government that looks like a Democracy, has the form and trappings of a Democracy, but really isn’t. Our founding document, The Declaration of Independence, says; We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, but, the reality of our founding is that only White Male Landowners had the right to vote. So, while I’m sure we’ll keep the trappings of Democracy, I feel betrayed because I am fearful that our reality will never match our aspirations. Worse, on this Memorial Day weekend, I am fearful that the country is drifting backward into rule by an oligarchy of the rich and powerful for the very rich and very powerful.