Amid heated debate about doing away with the Senate’s filibuster rule, a proposal so contentious it has been dubbed the “nuclear option,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Democrats should consider abolishing the filibuster if Republicans use it to thwart the Democrats’ priority legislation. Progressives have been pushing to scrap the filibuster rule, which was originally adopted to give the minority party a stronger voice in the Senate and prevent partisan control of the upper chamber by the majority. The rule essentially requires a super-majority threshold, now at 60 votes, to cut off debate in the Senate and bring legislative bills or other measures to a vote. While a number of Democrats, such as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), favor keeping the legislative filibuster, progressive groups have been pushing for it to be scrapped. “There’s a lot of progressive groups that have no patience on the …