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Democrats can get rid of that number at the start of any Congressional session. They have deliberately chosen not to do so, because they cling to the idea of bipartisan reforms passing through the upper chamber.
You offer the detractor the carrot or the stick. Very easy to wipe the vote of a Senator when the next Defense Authorization bill is up for a vote and everyone is talking about which bases to close.
Bush did not need 60 votes. Trump did not need 60 votes. Reagan sure as hell did not need 60 votes.
Democrats are lying to themselves if they think 60 is a magic number. They're lying even harder if they think 49 Socialist Party Senators would not be able to whip support for their policies, given how ably the GOP has skated by with a meager 40.
Do you have any examples of a carrot or stick actually convincing a politician to change their mind? If that worked, you could just shame Republicans into getting 100-0 votes for everything.
This is what's ridiculous to me. You're cynical and conspiratorial that there will always be controlled opposition, but you also think a bully pulpit and the right words will convince that opposition to support you.
The Civil Rights Act was a big one.
Could you elaborate? I'm genuinely interested in knowing more.
I mean, I don't want to be snide but... there's an ample backlog of historical material that gets into the details. Just pick up a book. Nick Kotz's "Judgement Days" offers a deep dive. Chapter 17 of Howard Zinn's "People's HIstory" gives you the abbreviated version. There are plenty of others.
From Johnson's acerbic legislative style to the economic leverage applied by MLK's boycotts and the militant organizing of Malcolm X's radicals, historically intractable politicians were swayed with both the carrot of an enormous new activist constituency and the stick of strikes, shut-downs, and the President literally grabbing and twisting your ballsack because you failed to deliver him the votes.