Democracy doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes, step by step, pushed along by leaders who see rules as obstacles instead of obligations. Trump is well into his second term now, and he’s been clear about one thing: institutional constraints are for other people. His latest demand is the most dangerous yet. He wants Senate Republicans to kill the legislative filibuster. Give the executive branch and the ruling party the power to pass anything with fifty votes and a vice presidential tiebreaker.
But something unexpected happened. Resistance came from within his own party.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and several senior Republicans refused. They called the filibuster a safeguard that protects minority rights and forces negotiation. Thune, John Barrasso, Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, they all said no to the nuclear option. Some went further. They called the filibuster the most important institutional protection the Senate has left.
Let me be clear. Hope feels small right now. We’re in the middle of a record-breaking shutdown. Trump wants the procedural brakes removed not just to reopen the government, but to ram through his agenda before Democrats can retake the chamber. His philosophy is power without limits. Yet several Republican senators drew a line, knowing what it might cost them. That matters.
Democracy depends on a simple idea: no party should control everything. The filibuster has serious flaws. It blocked civil rights legislation. It stalled judicial confirmations. It’s been weaponized for pure obstruction. But strip it away without real reform, and you hand unchecked authority to whoever holds the majority. Trump’s demand tells us what we’ve feared all along. Authoritarianism doesn’t always start with tanks in the streets. It starts by dismantling the fine print in procedural rules.
The resistance from Republican leadership didn’t come from some sudden moral awakening. Senators like Thune understand something basic: they might be in the minority someday. Remove the guardrails now, and nothing stops the other side from doing the same when the tables turn. That’s the whole point of checks on majority power.
Hope survives when some leaders value the institution more than one man’s approval. The Senate’s resistance shows that a few still understand what’s at stake. They’re not ready to give absolute power to the executive branch. Not yet.
Democracy survives through moments like this. Not because everything is fine. But because some people refuse to let it get worse.