For the last two agonizing years, the existence of the filibuster in the Senate has been the excuse of excuses to prevent any wildly popular progressive legislation or mildly progressive changes from being enacted.

Public option overwhelmingly popular? Too bad; the filibuster.

Wall Street regulation overwhelmingly popular? Too bad; the filibuster.

Immigration reform? Filibuster.

Ending the wars? Filibuster.

Climate change work? Filibuster.

Actual liberal nominees for the courts? Filibuster. (Sotomayor is a fine choice based on her body of work experience, especially vital trial judge work, but not exactly a liberal firebrand. Kagan’s grossly unqualified and her presence on the Supreme Court is a disgrace to the legal profession.)

So, now that the lower House is in Republican hands, and the Senate likely to fall in 2012, what do the Dems in the Senate finally want to get around to doing?

Removing the filibuster. Aka, the only tool that liberals have to even slow the Tea Party infused Conservative juggernaut down.

Naturally.

Greg Sargent reports that Harry Reid will respond to the call of his entire caucus and devise rules to reform the Senate rules.

At a caucus meeting this week attended only by Senators and no staff, Reid and fellow Dems devoted a significant chunk of time to a discussion about specific ideas on how to proceed, the aide says [...]

“They are already talking it through and devising a plan,” the aide said of Reid and fellow Dems, adding that Reid is having “conversations” with other members of the caucus “about the best way to move forward.”

Let me spell this out so that any of my fellow travelers on the Left who haven’t caught on to the scam:

This was the plan all along.

No, it’s not an elaborate conspiracy of every single Democrat in the Senate to disenfranchise liberals. Quite the contrary; the scam lies in disreputable centrist hacks like Reid knowing full well that, given a bit of good governance, Civics 101 rhetoric at the right moment, Progressives will shoot their agenda, their power, and their constituents squarely in the face to do The Right Thing for Democracy.

Like this:

The decision to reform the Senate rules has engendered some controversy among the progressive community. They question whether the timing is right, with a Republican majority in the House and the Senate likely to tip to Republicans in 2012, to make this reform. I wonder why they think that Republicans haven’t considered abolishing the filibuster rules outright the moment they get into power, but OK.

My position is that democracy can only work with a functioning legislature. If the people of the United States choose a Republican government, they endorsed Republican solutions to the nation’s problems. Those solutions should be advanced for the nation to endure. That’s the only way accountability in government can occur. This kabuki dance, where one party or another takes power and then laments the rules from stopping them from action, does not serve the public.

Why don’t I think the Republicans will do that? I’m not sure if they will or won’t. They didn’t previously, largely because Senate Republicans would be making the call, and as much as they love their agenda, they love their sense of self-importance more. That might hold true again, or not. But regardless, it wouldn’t happen for TWO MORE YEARS.

Here’s how this has gone, will probably play out, and keep in mind, this is The Plan:

-For two years, Republicans block all vaguely progressive legislation, ‘forcing’ Obama, Reid and Pelosi to tack to the right and give quasi-fascistic policies on everything.
-This serves the corporations well, weakens Dem support, and the Republicans can frame it to their base as, paradoxically, ‘socialism’.
-Then after the election, Dems disassemble the filibuster.
-Now, the Republicans in the House can ‘force’ Obama to…. tack to the right and give quasi-fascistic policies on everything.

It’s all about which corporate interests they needed to serve. In the first two years, we got massive bailouts of Healthcare and Finance, lobbies traditionally either friendly to Dems, or not actively unfriendly. (Witness how New York is very solidly blue, and yet very solidly in bed with Wall Street).

In the second two years of the Obama term, we’ll get bailouts of more traditionally Red corporate interests. The prisons, the military, Big Ag, Resource Extraction, Fossil Fuels, etc. Your full gamut of Captain Planet Dystopian villainy.

We needed Dem majorities to pass the first bailouts; we need unopposed Republicans for the second batch.

This is the plan. But ‘plan’ could be a misleading word. Perhaps it’s just the natural behavior of a captured system, a sort of emergent phenomenon. The most powerful interests acted first, and acted through Dems until they got worn out; now other interests will act through Republicans. Beyond a few truly monstrous cynics like Obama and Reid, who only care for their own power and prospects, who knows if it rises to a conscious level.

With Obama though, I’d certainly wager it does. All he cares about is the chance to make bold compromises so that he can try and buy his father’s love and approval via Republican proxy. It’s a fixation. This setup gives him another glorious two years of hippie-punching therapy.

That won’t stop some, like Mr. Dayen here, regrettably, from hoping desperately for a different future:

On key economic issues, one suspects that Democrats, nominally the party of the people, have no interest in living up to their rhetoric on the campaign trail. In this reading, they hide behind the Senate’s rules to confirm their inability to get anything done. Limiting the rules obstacles would kick the legs out from that excuse. In the words of this commenter, “The rule change issue will either save the Democratic Party or expose it as a corporate tool with a smiley face. Either outcome is a step ahead of where we are now.”

Sigh. Expose them, really? No, no, no. They already have a better excuse waiting: ‘The Constitution says all spending bills have to originate in the House. The Tea Partiers now control our budget. We’re helpless! Again!’

If the filibuster was intact, Dem voters might see through the con, and expect their Senators to, you know, filibuster. Hence it’s got to go. The ultimate goal for the Democratic Party is to appear helpless at all times, so that it can be blameless for all woe.

Hope, as they say, springs eternal.

This means, of course, that it is next to worthless. Enjoy the new Republican era, brought to you by the Democratic Party.

PS: Just earlier today, Dayen wrote this:

Regardless of whether filibuster rules change or not, political progress from the left in the next two years borders on the impossible. If we make it to 2012 unscathed with nothing more than gridlock it’ll be a miracle.

If gridlock is the best outcome, why the hell would you want to grease the skids? Oh, right. Hopeful idealism.

*rolls eyes*