Charles Blow, “an unabashed liberal,” asks a series of pointed questions raised by the behavior of one of the country’s major political parties:
What do you call members of a party who, from top to bottom, from elected officials to voters, largely believe a lie and a liar determined to undermine, corrupt and even destroy our democracy? What do you call a party whose leaders use that lie as a pretext to suppress the votes and voices of Americans with whom they disagree? What do you call a party slavishly devoted to a cult over the stability and prosperity of a country?
What do you call a party where many of its members have worked against a lifesaving, society-freeing vaccine in the middle of a pandemic, exposing many of their own followers to the deadly virus, all for the sake of being contrarian, anti-establishment and anti-science?
I call that party a national security threat and a cancer on our democracy.
Blow will get no argument from me. But what to do about the threat?
Democrats have ideas. Lots of ideas. And bills. They have crafted legislation for addressing the threats to democracy multiplying by the week. Those bills are stalled in a Senate held hostage by half its members who represent 43.5% of the country today, and 41,549,808 fewer Americans than senators from the Democratic Party. (Not to mention Democrats in the Senate more concerned for the traditions of the Senate than for small-D democratic ones.) Senate Republicans have not represented a majority of the populace since 1996.
President Biden may lead an administration more progressive than his political history, but there have been to date some holes in that fabric. His heart for the concerns of the working class lead him to believe that if he can pass his infrastructure package and get the pandemic under control, he will improve American lives and the economy. Not to mention his chances for reelection in 2024. That is, assuming democracy itself is not on a ventilator by then.
A Republican Party content to see its own voters on life support has little more concern for the health of the republic they no longer represent.
Agreeing with Biden, E.J. Dionne writes “that our democracy’s health depends on the political system demonstrating its capacity to undertake ambitious projects,” but “our democracy’s success also requires — well, that it remain a democracy.”
Biden’s White House — any White House — has only so much bandwidth, and more serious issues clamoring for it than it can bear at any time. Activists always want their issue placed on the front burner, and quickly get testy when they feel neglected. For the moment, the front burner is occupied by infrastructure. But with 2022 just around the corner and redistricting imminent, voting rights protections cannot wait.
Dionne hopes he sees a focus shifting. The infrastructure bill has survived repeated predictions of its demise, Dionne writes, looking for signs voting rights might survive as well:
Thus the importance of Friday’s White House meeting, in which Biden joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to craft a strategy to enact political reform and voting rights bills.
The meeting reflected a growing awareness inside the Biden camp that it cannot hang back and let democracy legislation founder while offering false hope that political organizing can overcome voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering.
The White House seems to have figured out it must spend at least as much political capitol promoting voting rights as bridges. Civil rights leaders, the Democratic base, and this writer demand it.
A White House statement after the meeting did not mention the filibuster. But it declared that “passing legislation to protect against voter suppression, electoral subversion, dark money and partisan gerrymandering” was a “moral imperative.”
In a Friday news conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “This is of the highest priority for us.“
[Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer, too, has gone on offense, hosting efforts by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and others to write a new version of the political reform bill rooted in many of Manchin’s suggestions for easier ballot access. The bill will also include new provisions to try to stop partisan bodies from pushing aside local election officials and nullifying election results.
Some lesser reforms on the Democrats’ wish list can go if that helps core provisions pass. Indeed, some of the campaign finance elements such as a small donor matching fund system may be included as sacrificial anodes. But “the shot clock is ticking,” says Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), lead House sponsor of the For the People Act. The Census Bureau is scheduled to release its data for redistricting on Aug. 16.
Dionne sees the work of Klobuchar, et al. as a sign there is still hope for a Senate breakthrough to match the one on infrastructure. Otherwise, why go to the effort? Because if they do not fight for the rights so hard-won by their political base, that base may not turn out in November 2022.
The Poor People’s Campaign was in Austin, Texas over the weekend to rally for voting rights. They pledge to go from capitol to capitol to rally support for preserving what the original Civil Rights movement won in the 1960s. Build a community as you go, Rev. William Barber II encouraged anti-eviction protesters and called out Democrats at the U.S. Capitol Sunday evening. [timestamp 5:37]
“This society tries to make us social media activists where we know our issue but we don’t know each other. But while you’re sitting here, get to know each other. Break outside of the boxes.”
This is how movements build.