Here is Robert Reich’s opinion on the threats to our democracy:
So without Manchin, the For the People Act is likely dead unless Biden can convince a Republican senator to join the Senate Democrats to support him – like Mitt Romney of Utah, who publicly reprimanded Trump for that he lied about the 2020 election, something like the reputation of an institutionalist who cares about American democracy.
Given Trump’s continued influence in the shrinking Republican Party, any Republican senator who teams up with the Democrats to support the For the People Act would likely end their political career. Bold profiles are a good copy for political obituaries and memorials.
I fear history will show that in this shameful era, Republican senators were united in opposing the right to vote than Democratic senators were in support for them.
The future of American democracy needs better opportunities.
Jonathan Chait:
There are two conflicting values here: the right to vote and the evil of partisan electoral law. Some say the first is “fundamental” but if they are not willing to violate the second value in order to secure it, then it clearly is not.
Lee Drutman argues that the GOP has become an anti-democratic party:
The Republican Party of 2021, and its leaders in particular, have now abandoned these principles. At the national level, they have refused to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election results and have encouraged or condoned violence. At the state level, they have abused their power to change the rules so that voting rights are restricted. Although these anti-democratic sentiments have been building up within the ranks of the party for years, the events of 2021 mark the transformation of the Republican Party into a truly illiberal party and a serious threat to the continued existence of American democracy as we know it.
Finally, don’t miss George Packer’s analysis of The Atlantic on our broken land:
The 1970s ended post-war, bipartisan, middle-class America and with it the two relatively stable narratives of getting ahead and the fair shake. In their place, four rival narratives have emerged, four accounts of America’s moral identity. They have roots in history, but are shaped by new ways of thinking and living. They reflect divisions on both sides of the divide that made us two countries, and widen and deepen the fault lines. Over the past four decades, the four narratives have, in turn, exerted influence. They overlap, merge, attract and repel. Neither can be understood separately from the others because all four arise from the same whole.
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