Senator Roger Marshall’s exchange on The Ingraham Angle was a breath of fresh, common-sense conservatism in a Senate mired by cowardice and theatrical paralysis. Asked point-blank if it’s time to ditch the filibuster, Marshall didn’t dodge — he told Laura Ingraham that “every day that this shutdown goes on, the more I’m convinced we need to end the filibuster,” a line that should make every Republican who claims to care about results take notice.
Make no mistake: this debate isn’t abstract. The government has been shut down for weeks while Democrats play political hardball, and Republicans holding a slim majority in the Senate find themselves unable to move emergency fixes because 60 votes are required to break a filibuster. Americans are the ones paying the price while elite Washington figures posture about “tradition” as if meeting payrolls and national security are optional.
Marshall hasn’t jumped fully to the “nuclear option” yet, and prudence matters — he’s publicly wrestling with the idea of enshrining the filibuster as a constitutional amendment to bind the next party’s hands. But his sober candor — admitting he’s moving closer to supporting elimination the longer the shutdown drags on — is exactly the muscular honesty voters deserve from elected Republicans, not another round of Beltway excuses.
Let’s be blunt: President Trump and Marshall are making the right point when they say the procedural rules must not be a permanent chokehold on conservative reform. Marshall even noted that if Republicans could act unshackled, they could push through commonsense election security measures and undo Obamacare’s worst failures — goals millions of Americans back but the Senate’s cloture rule keeps from reality. If Democrats refuse to open the government now, why should they be trusted with a sacred veto over everything conservatives want to accomplish?
Marshall also called out the shutdown for what it is: a deliberate political strategy by Senate Democrats who believe gridlock serves their power games. That kind of naked cynicism should push every GOP senator who claims to represent the people to stop protecting the permanent political class and start delivering for families, farmers, and small businesses who wake up every day worrying about bills and jobs.
This moment demands backbone, not nostalgia for rules that now protect our opponents more than they protect liberty. If Republicans continue to sit on their hands while the Left weaponizes Senate procedure and holds the country hostage, they will deserve the electoral consequences. Marshall is signaling what patriotic conservatives have known for a long time: it’s time to choose the country over comfort, results over ritual, and to stop letting Washington’s rules beat Main Street.
