system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: what exactly is the filibuster?
gpt
In the US senate, voting on a bill can’t happen until debate has finished.

That means that, if you really don’t like a bill, you can debate it.  And debate it.  And debate it.  And debate it.  Until the sun burns out.

This tactic of taking the debate floor and just talking and talking and talking until someone dies is the “Filibuster”

A 60 vote supermajority can shut it down so one holdout can’t stop the other 99, but for bills that only have 50 likely favorable votes it’s effective.

These days the process is a little more expedited and you can simply declare a filibuster rather than actually needing to rotate speakers for days, but the idea is the same: your bill has a barest majority of support and we’re not going to agree to vote on it.

Politicians are hesitant to kill it because they’re likely to want to use it next time they’re the minority party.