Some are saying that that the Democrats just killed the old Senate but John Dickerson nails it here, The Old Senate Was Already Dead.

In the old Senate, the rules and customs created a culture of comity and bipartisanship. Little can be done in the Senate without unanimous consent of its members. That is one of its bedrock principles, which means each senator has tremendous power, but also has a certain amount of responsibility to keep the place humming. In return for such power, senators are supposed to follow the established norms of regular order, give extra weight to the views of veteran members, and shave off their partisan edges.

When Mitch McConnell announced shortly after the 2008 election that Republicans were going to do everything they to block everything and make sure the president was a one term president that  “culture of comity” no longer existed in the Senate.  The Republicans did not follow “established norms of regular order “.  When Obama was reelected in 2012 it got even worse.  The only policy the Republicans had was to de-legitimize the duly elected   President of the United States.

I think much of this is the result of the new  John Birchers, the Tea Party funded by the Koch brothers.

On the Republican side, the new ways showed themselves during the government shutdown. Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee essentially took control of the Senate for a period, leading the movement to tie funding the government to defunding Obamacare. It wasn’t a success, but they got further than they would have in the old days. Leaders like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell face Tea Party challenges from the grass roots that limit what they can do in the Senate for fear of reprisals back home.

Yes, It was time for the filibuster to go.  The Senate is already tilted to the minority – 10% of the population has 40 votes in the Senate while 33%  only have 10 votes.  The filibuster only exacerbates this discrepancy.