"The thing to grasp about the Republican state-level counteroffensive against voting is that, within the bounds of party opinion, it is a compromise. Stacking the legal deck against voting, and in favor of Trump-style postelection legal challenges, arouses barely any controversy on the right. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which has occasionally drawn publicity by criticizing Trump’s communication style and undisciplined personal conduct, gives the Texas bill a fulsome endorsement. (The Journal has been laying the groundwork to fend off another Georgia-style backlash by running column after column warning corporations to stay out of the democracy issue.) Even Liz Cheney refused to condemn voter suppression, or even concede any link between these measures and Trump’s lies about the election.
"The Republican Party, like all parties, is trying to hold together a coalition. That coalition includes people like [convicted felon Michael] Flynn, who want to simply seize power at gunpoint. The accommodation they have reached between their violent and nonviolent wings is a legal regimen designed to ensure that the next time a Trump rejects the election result, he won’t need a mob to prevail." -- Jonathan Chait, in "Texas Republicans Want to Make Trump's Coup Nice and Legal," in the current issue of New York Magazine.
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"We, the undersigned, are scholars of democracy who have watched the
recent deterioration of U.S. elections and liberal democracy with
growing alarm. Specifically, we have watched with deep concern as
Republican-led state legislatures across the country have in recent
months proposed or implemented what we consider radical changes to core
electoral procedures in response to unproven and intentionally
destructive allegations of a stolen election. Collectively, these
initiatives are transforming several states into political systems that
no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.
Hence, our entire democracy is now at risk." -- the opening paragraph of a statement of concern signed by 100 scholars who study democracies.
This is what bowing to the anti- democratic, Jim Crow - era filibuster rule would give us in the future -- a minority party dedicated to fascistic, anti- democratic rule at all costs in as many states as it can control and, ultimately, the nation generally. As President Biden said yesterday democracy is in peril in this country, and the enemies of democracy have made their moves. It's past time for our response: pass the damn "For the People Act"!
