John Thune, the Republican Party’s soon to be new majority leader, speaking from the hallowed floor of that 165 year old chamber, recently said that he found it, “ironic that the party that has spent a fair amount of time this election cycle talking about the importance of preserving our democracy seems intent on embracing the thoroughly undemocratic notion that only one party should be making decisions in this country.” That is to say that he said, this time apparently without a sense of irony, that preserving the filibuster—an antidemocratic procedure deployed by an aristocratic body—is essential to the maintenance of our ongoing experiment in practicing democracy.