I don't know if you saw this, but two days ago, the Senate, and when I say the Senate,

I mean 99 of its members.

Somebody else wasn't there. I never got to the bottom of who was missing in this vote.

99 Senators, Democrats, Republicans, and even my independent mentor Bernie Sanders.

Voted for something so horrible, so problematic, that I literally thought it was the onion.

I thought it was fake news. I thought it was a practical joke when I saw it.

I'll tell you after the break what it is. Let me unpack and explain it.

This is Sean King. You are listening to The Breakdown.

The Breakdown. The Breakdown.

As a general rule, the United States Senate, and I have studied the Senate in this way,

I've studied the history of civil rights in the Senate. I'm talking about going back to its early days as a functioning body all the way to this week.

As a general rule, when it comes to civil rights, human rights, and particularly when it comes to black people,

the United States Senate doesn't have much courage. Like I just have to tell the hard Frank Truth,

it is not a courageous body when it comes to civil rights.

Somebody may say, well, they did this.

There are a few exceptions. There are very few exceptions. As a general rule, it's not a courageous group of people.

I would even flip it and say it this way. As a general rule, the role of the United States Senate is not to make America better,

but it is to preserve the way things are.

They tinker with the way things are here and there, minor adjustments here and there.

But over its hundreds of years of existence, it is not normally a courageous group of people.

We may be able, on one hand, to pick a few relatively courageous moments, but what that means is that there are way more cowardly moments than there are courageous ones.

This week, and this is going to be a short episode, because I might start cussing.

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