“Republicans are not a threat to the republic because they want to ban water distribution in voting lines and drive-through voting. They are a threat to the republic because they have found a potentially fatal weakness in the constitutional order that they are perfectly willing to exploit,” writes former Bush II speechwriter Michael Gerson.
Fatal.
Gerson’s complaint is that Democrats are doing too little beside talking to defend the constitutional order they have sworn to uphold. Gerson imagines Joe Biden as Henry V at Harfleurstrongly recommending his men go once more into the breach. But perhaps Biden as Lincoln would make a more apt parody had Abe’s letter to George McClellan urged him to pursue Lee’s army if it isn’t too much trouble.
That’s not a stretch. After offering lots of tactical advice, Lincoln finished, “This letter is in no sense an order. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.” Yeah, Biden might have written that.
It will take more than stern language and hints to save the republic. With reason, Gerson is not convinvced Democrats are serious about it. He provides some pros and cons on reforming the filibuster rule that stands in Democrats’ way, digressing to cite experts who believe voter turnout neither helps nor hinders either party.
“[Republicans] certainly intend to cheat,” Gerson offers, “but that doesn’t make them effective cheaters.” More important is that Democrats’ proposed voting rights remedies “are only partially responsive to GOP recklessness.”
But even confronted by clear evidence that Donald Trump and his co-conspirators contemplated a constitutional coup this year, Democrats seem to lack Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “fierce urgency of now.”
Gerson concludes:
What is the proper response when an authoritarian has found a constitutional self-destruct button and can’t wait to press it? Surely this is a reason for Democrats to find a common approach that not only modifies Senate rules to pass the Freedom to Vote Act but also confronts the antidemocratic lawlessness at the heart of Republican ideology. A little more unity, urgency and clarity, please.
And a lot more fierceness.