With many states passing laws that will allow Republican-dominated legislatures to determine the outcomes of elections, and possibly decide who serves on the Electoral College for their state, it is obvious that election results next year will be largely meaningless unless our Democratically-controlled Congress passes voting rights legislation now.
It is still possible for Congress to set the rules for elections that will help ensure the election results reflect the will of the voters. The House already acted. The only remaining question is whether the Senate will pass these same bills, setting minimum standards to ensure everyone entitled to vote gets a fair shot at doing so.
This is a dire situation, as highlighted on Deadline White House today (1 September 2021) on MSNBC, in this exchange:
Nicolle Wallace:
What the Democrats, who are the only party interested in governing, miss about the Republicans is the audacity to be malevolent. And what is new, the innovation, the advancement, for the Republican Party—because I know a lot of people say it’s always been that—the advancement is that it’s all out in the open. The advancement is that Sidney Powell has the audacity to say the things she’s said, and now think there is some defense from the billions of dollars she’s being sued for by the voting companies. The audacity of Tucker Carlsen to gaslight, to have Marjorie Taylor Greene on talk about shutting down telecom companies that are subpoenaed by Congress. The audacity doesn’t seem to be matched by urgency from the one political party in this country that we have left to protect and preserve our democracy.
John Heilemann:
Yeah, so Nicolle, that’s the part (at the very end) that I think matters the most. … I can’t characterize any of this as madness. I mean, it’s madness in the macro sense. This is all madness, right. But it’s not madness on the Republican side. It’s a calculated, carefully calibrated strategy for the acquisition, retention, and sustenance of power. Anti-democratic, illegitimate power. They’re running a play. And they haven’t lost their minds. They just seen where the weaknesses are. What they’ve learned in four years of Donald Trump—and this gets to your first point, Nicolle, which is that there’s no meaningful penalty for the kind of brazenness and the “upfrontness” of these schemes. No one has to hide them any more in the corners. No one has to hide them in the darkness, right? They’ve learned in four years that not only is there no penalty for this kind of behavior, but there’s a lot to be gained from this behavior, right? So, they’ve tested the limits of how far they can go. And now they’re going to go just a little bit further because that’s how you do this thing. When you’re breaking down norms and pushing the limits of acceptable law and democratic tradition, you push it one step further.
But it seems all highly calculated to me. And it’s going to be successful. That’s the maddening part of it. That’s not madness. That’s the maddening part of it. And it gets again to your last point, which is … We make this point on this show…many times. Why aren’t Democrats not more urgently confronting this. And people yell at us on Twitter. I know they yell at you, too. “Why are you blaming Democrats. It’s the Republicans’ fault.” Yeah, I know it’s the Republicans’ fault. The reality is, though, there’s only one counterforce here. They [the Republicans] are going to do this here and they are going to be successful unless they are met with a superior, larger, more energized, more ruthless, more determined, more creative, counterforce.
Is that right? Should it have to be that way? Is it the Democrats’—should it be morally incumbent or politically incumbent to be the only functional party in our democracy? Of course not! But they are. And the reality is if they don’t beat this stuff back at the national level and state-by-state, we are going to end up in a place that’s not a democratic country. That’s the clear intent of Republicans, now, and I think that’s the only answer now. It’s not—there’s no question.
[This transcript omits word fumbles.]
I quoted this segment at length because I think Heilemann makes a very cogent argument why the Democratic Party has responsibility for whether democracy survives in this country or not. The Republicans are clearly intending to undermine democracy. It is within the power of our party to stop them, but we need to unite behind democracy as our fundamental principle, not adherence to abstract notions of procedure.
Let me spell that out.
It’s time for the Senate to give up its dysfunctional filibuster rules, where it is necessary to pass critical legislation. If anyone has any questions about how this can be done, they can refer to my article on fixing the filibuster.
The main stumbling block to fixing the filibuster and passing critical voting rights bills is Sen. Joe Manchin. Manchin insists that the filibuster leads to bipartisan legislation, but he’s failed to show this is the case. (See here.)
I’m a very patient guy, but my patience is rapidly evaporating. Unless Manchin can show that voting rights legislation can pass the Senate within the next two weeks I’m going to start a movement to get him kicked out of the Democratic Party.
You may not like the idea of forcing Manchin out of the party. If so, this is a good time to press him and his backers to get busy on voting rights. We need a bill that will set minimum standards for elections and prevent political parties from undermining the will of the people by substituting their own results for the popular results. That’s the bare minimum necessary.
And without it, we can reasonably foresee the end of Democratic presence in government, because the Republicans have been systematically rigging the rules so that they will always win. It’s time for us to stop them. It’s time for the Democratic Party to be “a superior, larger, more energized, more ruthless, more determined, more creative, counterforce” against the Republican attempt to end democracy.
So, let’s just send an unambiguous message to Sen. Manchin and anyone who thinks he’s on the right track: Ensure the right to vote for every citizen. Make sure their votes are actually counted.
Otherwise, I’ll be back on 16 September demanding Manchin leave the party.