McConnell is brutal and vicious, but he's also a master strategist. He knows that the only thing holding back the flood of legislation to help those most in need is the filibuster. He knows that allowing Democrats to help people will kill his chances of regaining control. Good for the country == Bad for McConnell, bad for Republicans. This is true for voter protections as Republicans can now only win through subtraction. Voter protection is the nail in the R coffin. But it's also true for messaging. government is bad and should be smaller doesn't fly if government is helping.

So I think he'll pick some things at the margins to the Republican base. Minimum Wage. Criminal Justice Reform. Immigration Reform. He'll get his most secure caucus members to vote Yes on cloture to break his own filibuster. They'll vote no on the actual bill & campaign on those No votes.

This lets McConnell control the agenda. There's so much that needs doing Schumer can't really say, "No we don't want a stand alone vote on $15." McConnell can make sure the pieces are small & his R base won't choke on them. He won't touch taxes since that's a 3rd rail for donors. By holding out revenue raisers he also undermines what does get passed because without money laws are just paper. And he doesn't do Schumer any favors, forcing him to burn reconciliation tokens to get bigger, R donor angering things like taxes and regulations passed.

And if he plays his cards right, he lets just enough leak through for Manchin and Sinema to say, "look they're working with us we can keep the racist, Jim Crow Filibuster unchanged." And come Nov 2022, Republicans will take back the House & Senate, setting the stage to take the White House in 2024.

The antidote to this no conversations about the filibuster can reflect current Republicans, the current legislative agenda, the current dynamics. The Jim Crow Filibuster is racist, and is used solely to block social, racial, and economic progress, not retrenchment. You Abolish the Filibuster by highlighting that history and not accepting the ahistorical narrative that the system was intended to work this way. This has nothing to do with whether the current cohort of Republicans will or won't vote for a single Democratic bill.