I'm a historian and I'm telling Mitch McConnell that the filibuster is racist

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Let's be clear: Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says a lot of things, many of them not exactly on the level.

March 26, 2021

Let's be clear: Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says a lot of things, many of them not exactly on the level. But earlier this week, he took that to a new level when discussing the filibuster, the tool that currently lets a minority of senators block almost any legislation in the Senate. McConnell told reporters with a straight face that Democrats were wrong and that the filibuster "has no racial history at all. None. There's no dispute among historians about that." Keisha Blain would beg to differ in her debut essay with MSNBC Daily.

"As a historian, I can tell you that this could not be further from the truth," Blain writes of McConnell's claim. "Even a brief examination of United States history reveals that it is impossible to separate the filibuster from the history of racism and white supremacy. Then, as now, filibusters were often used as a mechanism to block measures to expand Black rights and political participation."

Read the full analysis at the top of your Friday MSNBC Daily.

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