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Notes -
*taps constitutional conservative sign*
This is a feature of congress, not a bug. The point of the structure of the Senate (equal state representation instead of proportional, longer terms, advise and consent duties to executive branch appointments, most special of which are SCOTUS judges, etc.) is that it is supposed to be the "collegial institution" that slows down the structurally populist, high variance legislative whipsawing of the House. The filibuster necessitating close to a super majority to override is a continuation of that.
Americans' problem isn't with Congress per se, it's mostly with the creeping Federal bureaucracy, regulatory apparatus (which has a positive feedback loop with general PMC culture), and the imperial presidency. The growth of Leviathan since WW2 is the problem. I don't want to see Congress becoming fundamentally more active. I'd like to see them pare back the powers of the executive branch (which they can do but most members are a bit too tied at the hip to any given sitting President.)
Then, I'd like to see a hard RETVRN to Federalism that places states as the primary "actors." California can experiment with its
polyamorysocialist redistributionism while West Virginia fucks around with legalizing machine guns.Right now, this is extremely murky in actual application because of 1) The 14th amendment and 2) The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the several amendments passed on it in the intervening decades. We'd probably be looking at a SCOTUS decision so far reaching that this SCOTUS - which is conservative any way you slice it, the argument is only to what degree - wouldn't take such a case.
That's the deeper "Straussian" view of the gridlock.
It ain't the filibuster.
...I hope you're not claiming to get that view from actual Straussians. The closest thing there is to a (West Coast) Straussian perspective on the current state of Congress is that the Constitution intends for the legislature to be a dynamic, powerful branch which acts to shape the law as necessary. The Senate is a participant in that process, but a participant in an actual working process. Congress today is a castrati choir because of the Leviathan you mentioned, but Congress also willingly abdicated their power to Leviathan in order to keep their chairs comfy and spend more time fundraising.
From your lips to Lady Columbia's ears.
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Regardless we already expanded the executive powers to rule instead of congress.
Filibuster isn’t in the constitution. The founding fathers definitely believed that there are things that need to be done at the national level.
For this specific discussion we are talking about border security which every founding father would 100% agree congress should make laws about it.
That's fair. Regarding immigration specifically, I generally agree with you and the other posters above.
I was trying to develop the full picture, however. I am generally hyper suspicious of "if we just did this one thing" style solutions. And so, here, I was pointing out that nuking the filibuster won't actually "fix" congress.
Current country partisan makeup basically means nothing can pass with the filibuster. The government does have to govern
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