Abbreviated pundit roundup: Democracy under attack

[Brexiter]

We begin today’s roundup with Sam Brodey at The Daily Beast and his analysis of Senator Joe Manchin’s refusal to entertain filibuster reform:

On nearly everything of consequence on Capitol Hill these days, Manchin finds himself right where he likes it: at the center of attention and the Senate’s political spectrum. With the chamber split 50-50, Manchin is, and will be, the deciding Democratic vote to pass the central items of President Joe Biden’s agenda. He has the power to freeze the Senate floor for hours if he has a problem with language in a bill. And he has a special ability among his colleagues to broker compromises on an array of issues.

But when it comes to tackling the most high-profile issues, Manchin might be occupying a different political reality than his colleagues. Ask Democratic senators whether Manchin’s notion of bipartisan dealmaking on the thorniest issues is possible and they’ll give some diplomatic answers. They take care to avoid criticizing Manchin, but gently suggest he is wasting his time.

No need to be gentle about it. The quest for bipartisanship is quixotic when the other party is “100% focused on stopping [the Biden] administration.”

Meanwhile, Chauncey Devega at Salon sounds the alarm on the attacks on our democracy and urges Democrats to fight back:

The Republican Party is attacking American democracy in plain sight. The party of Trump is doing this without fear, with little need for guile or subterfuge and with unabashed, bold confidence.

In essence, the Republican Party and its followers and allies have declared that no American election is considered valid unless a Republican candidate wins. This is obviously the stuff of fascist, white supremacist and anti-democratic regimes where the endpoint is a form of "managed democracy" similar to Vladimir Putin's Russia or Viktor Orbán's Hungary, where elections still occur but one party rules indefinitely. [...]

The Republican Party's attacks on democracy are a national emergency. Will the Democrats stand up and fight, doing everything possible to defend American democracy? Or will they simply roll over for the forces of authoritarianism, protesting the whole time about rules and norms and the tremendous unfairness of the process?

No one really knows the answer, least of all the Democrats themselves. They and we — and all people around the world who still look to America as a symbol of democratic possibility — are running out of time.

The Washington Post calls on Texas Republicans to drop their voting rights restrictions:

Republicans are instead adding all sorts of needless restrictions, because they calculate that they will discourage more Democrats than Republicans from voting, and because they have cultivated among their base the poisonous lie that Democrats stole the 2020 vote, to the point that they must now legislate as though this fiction is real.


Texas Republicans should not escape the opprobrium they are due. Between now and the legislature’s special session, Texas leaders, businesses and ordinary citizens should demand that Republicans drop their anti-American bill.

Paul Waldman:

This is a battle over which party gets to rule. But more importantly, it’s about whether we have a democracy at all, whether all citizens are allowed to vote and the system respects their decisions. That hasn’t always been true in the past. And if some people get their way, it won’t be true in the future.

In case you missed Charles Blow this weekend and his piece on the attacks on our democracy:

Most Republican senators couldn’t vote for the independent commission because the people attempting the insurrection were their voters. The insurrectionists didn’t so much want to completely destroy democracy but to redefine democracy as a system in which their voice held more weight, determinative weight. The insurrectionists want the same thing as the Republican Party that shields them.

On a different subject, Eugene Robinson reflects on the Tulsa Massacre:

No one should be under the impression that the burning of “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa a century ago was a one-off atrocity. In fact, it was part of a long and shameful pattern in which White mobs used murderous violence to erase African American prosperity. [...]


The point is this: There are those who deny that anything called “systemic racism” is a feature of the American landscape. They should be aware that history tells a very different story.

And on a final note, don’t miss this fascinating piece on President Biden from Gabriel Debenedetti:

It’s no secret that Republicans are broadly flailing in their early efforts to develop a consistent semi-post-Trump message for themselves beyond insisting against all reason that the past election was stolen. But they’ve also proven completely unable to demonize Biden as they have recent Democratic commanders-in-chief and as Democrats have recent Republican ones.

He’s not quite Teflon Joe, but more than four months into his administration, Biden is shaping up to be the first president to escape serious vilification from his opponents in at least 30 years.