While rebutting another post here on Lemmy, I ran into this. This says exactly what I want to say.
I am not a friend of Biden’s Administration. I think they drug their feet over a variety of things ranging from holding Trump and his goons accountable for January 6th through rulemaking on issues like OTC Birth Control and abortion rights, and yes, I think he’s too quick to please big business. But then I remember what the alternative is, and … well, disappointed in Biden or not, I’m voting for him. Because my wife is a Black bisexual goth woman, four strikes under Team Pepe’s tent. And I have my own strikes for marrying her as a White dude, and respecting her right to not have kids since she doesn’t want them is another strike against me. And I care about my Non-Christian, Gay, Transgender, and Minority friends, and will never willingly subject them to Team Pepe.
You don’t need to get past the filibuster to get rid of the filibuster.
No, but you do need enough votes that the people who like the status quo can be overriden. The last time that was the case was the brief period between 2008 and 2010 where there were 59 (and a 3-week window where they had 60) democrats in the Senate, and during that period McConnell’s “block everything and don’t give Obama any wins at all” strategy wasn’t fully apparent yet, so there was no appetite to get rid of the filibuster because it hadn’t yet been so widely abused. Then the 2010 midterm came in and democrats went from holding 59 seats to 51, and we’ve been stuck with Manchin (and later Sinema) having effective veto power on the Democrat agenda ever since.