For liberals whose priority is ending or reforming the rule that requires 60 votes to pass most bills in the Senate, however, the GOP’s move is undoubtedly a political gift. Their imperative is to convince the remaining Democratic defenders of the filibuster—namely Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona—that it is not a tool that forces consensus. They have to show these holdouts that Republicans are instead bent on abusing it as a matter of routine. “You couldn’t choose a better example of Republican obstreperousness, to use President Biden’s line,” Eli Zupnick, a former Senate Democratic aide, told me. “There was a literal attack on their workplace.” Zupnick is a spokesperson for the group Fix Our Senate, a coalition of organizations on the left that is lobbying the chamber’s 50 Democrats to scrap or significantly overhaul the filibuster. The group is planning to spend more than $1 million on television and digital ads, and Zupnick said he sees the next two months as crucial to its effort. That’s when Senate Democrats hope to make a major push to pass their For the People Act, a voting-rights bill that would create new federal standards for elections and counter GOP moves at the state level to suppress Democratic turnout. McConnell has made defeating the voting-rights bill a top priority, and so to pass it, Democrats would have to eliminate the 60-vote threshold. To do that, they need Manchin and Sinema to change their mind. Ginning up grassroots pressure won’t be sufficient. Progressive activists know that for Manchin and Sinema to come around, they need Republicans to help; Manchin and Sinema must see for themselves that, whether out of loyalty to Trump or for other political reasons, Republicans will never be the honest negotiating partners they want them to be.