MSNBC analyst and former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele called ending the filibuster "common sense" on Tuesday, disgusting conservatives for his embrace of the position clamored for by liberal Democrats.
Over a "Morning Joe" graphic reading "The Fight to Reform the Senate Filibuster," Steele complained the filibuster was used as a "political insider's game" to "not have to deal with the big policy." Like many progressive voices, he grew hyperbolic on the issue of Republican state voter laws, saying they were "stripping away our access to the ballot box."
"We're not asking for the federal government to control voting. We're asking, can you just create a platform in which we can access voting in our own states? And yet they're falling back on these procedural arguments as if people give a damn, and they don't," Steele said. "They just want you to do the … legislation. This is not rocket science. It's common sense."
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The party's left flank is urging Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to reverse their stance against ending the filibuster and make it easier to pass sweeping left-wing legislation like the For The People Act. Conservatives jumped on Steele, who is already unpopular on the right given his politics have taken a heel turn like so many others in the Trump era.
Many simply marveled he headed the party from 2009 to 2011, during which the Republicans took back the House majority in the 2010 Tea Party revolution. However, his tenure was short-lived, partly due to difficulties fundraising, and he was eventually replaced by Reince Priebus.
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"When a Democrat Senator from Arizona understands things better than the former head of the RNC," writer Stephen L. Miller tweeted, referring to Sinema's recent op-ed defending the filibuster.
Former Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Steele was "phony."
"Is it possible to be more histrionic?" writer Jay Caruso asked.
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Steele, who also joined the left-wing Lincoln Project PAC last year, is one of several disgruntled Republicans or ex-Republicans who have become reliably liberal cable news voices in the past five years, such as ex-Bush administration flack Nicolle Wallace, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd, CNN commentator Ana Navarro, and former McCain strategist Steve Schmidt.