Is it too little too late?
It was the question that hung in the air under the agitation, obviously sincere Comments by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on voting rights in Georgia on Tuesday afternoon.
That’s the question members of the Biden base posed by they boycott the Georgia event. It was a question that resonated on social media as progressives expressed their disappointment that important law is designed to restore and protect voting rights is now likely to fail despite the president’s pledge to fight for what he calls “democratic threshold freedom”.
And it is almost certainly the wrong question.
The right to vote in America has been under attack for years. The Roberts Supreme Court even ruled that they no longer need the protection they once did in being famous is a mistake Shelby County v. Holder decision. That court gave those with money a larger role in our democracy than those without money in being famous is a mistake United Citizens decision. State legislatures, backed by high courts, have used gerrymandering to make fair elections less popular.
The US president ended up actively trying to steal an election, and members of his party have proposed more than 400 laws to make it harder for people to vote for Democrats. As both Biden and Harris have noted, some of Georgia’s new voting laws are particularly egregious – making it more difficult to vote by mail and voting at the mailboxes and making it difficult to bring food or water to people who are queuing to vote become a crime.
Biden noted that in 2006, 93 members of the United States Senate voted to renew the Voting Rights Act and President George W. Bush signed it into law. Bush like his father, Reagan and Ford and Nixon supported the act, as did virtually all Republicans for many years. But since 2006, when the impact of right-wing donors to win states and pack up the courts began to bear fruit, things have changed for the worse. United Citizens was decided in 2010. Shelby County was decided in 2013.
Today, as Biden has pointed out, not a single Republican is willing to vote to allow the singularity debate on which our entire system of government is based.
But not just Republicans, of course. Voting rights legislation could be passed if the Democrats, who currently hold a majority in the Senate, vote together to create the kind of gentle reform that would allow protection of this vital right through a referendum. simple majority voting. It’s not a far-fetched idea. That is, after all, the way such measures have passed the House of Commons. And that is how the Constitution provided for such measures to pass the Senate.
But some Democrats vehemently oppose film reform of any kind. They hid behind the complete lie that the filter is a great Senate tradition (it’s not – it’s used so often it’s a recent development and it’s not mentioned in the Constitution ) and baseless rotation (which claims that the filter advertises bipartisan rights when in reality it does not, is often used to impose the will of the minority on the majority). Perhaps some people believed these things at first, until they were debunked a thousand times. Perhaps others see the film as a way to defend Democrats against a possible Republican majority, well aware of the earth-burning tactics of Mitch McConnell and the modern GOP. But there’s nothing to stop the GOP from changing the rules to suit them if they win back a majority, and so that argument is empty, too.
Furthermore, a narrow “introspection” on the issue of preserving voting rights would be consistent with other recent aspects, such as those surrounding judicial nominations and budget adjustments. So why not support such a carving?
There is only one possible answer: They or those with whom they are seen are completely comfortable with the idea that, as Biden has described it, “turns the will of the voters into a mere proposition.” They, like the GOP, fear the will of the people in a country undergoing rapid demographic change. Whether it stems from racism or skepticism in defense of political or economic interests, the result is the same.
Biden accurately and unpretentiously describes these people as siding with George Wallace, Bull Connor, and the racist thugs in American history. But here’s the thing: They — Republicans and a select few Democrats — were before Biden and Harris arrived. And Biden and Harris and their team in the White House know it’s highly unlikely that they change their positions.
Furthermore, they know that if they prioritize suffrage reform and they lose it, civil rights and suffrage activists, a hugely important part of the Democratic establishment, will be furious. and the rifts it causes within the party can be deeply damaging to it… and so they have a chance to maintain a congressional majority, who are really important to maintain democracy, confirm. better judges and pass meaningful legislation in the future.
The point is that a rift in the Democratic Party will happen whenever this issue finally arises and that is exactly what is happening now. And worse is most likely in the store.
Joe Biden now says he’s in favor of film reform, but Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have a hard time doing so and they have votes in the Senate and he doesn’t – a point he made when referring to ” 51 presidents” that he has to deal with in the upper house of Congress. (See the sad fate of the Build Back Better package for proof of this.)
If even a Democrat declared that no meaningful voting act would be passed. And the president, because he’s president, will be blamed for that – although the fault lies entirely with the GOP and the obstructing Democrats who, for all intents and purposes, are negotiating Talk to them about this. And that will create conflict and division within the Democratic Party. And it could keep some people from voting or working hard for Democrats in November. And if Democrats lose the House and perhaps the Senate in November, the erosion of democracy in America will only speed up.
While that sounds like a worst-case scenario, it’s actually, right now, a very likely one. It will take real leadership not only from the president but also from the suffrage, civil rights and other leaders in the Democratic Party to ensure that frustrations are fully justified and anger is understandable. get with the situation doesn’t become the trigger for the situation to get even worse.
If the suffrage law is not passed, the road to defending democracy becomes much more difficult, but above all it depends on one thing: cohesion within the Democratic Party. Demonstrating a critical and argumentative strategy is inevitable and healthy. Blaming Biden for a crisis that began long before he took office and that he and Harris have actively fought at every stage of their careers is unfair. So it is also possible to blame them for the actions of the GOP or for their inability to turn opponents of democracy into patriots overnight.
We are entering firing squad territory with attacks on the president and the White House for allegedly doing “too little, too late.” Voting advocates targeting Biden are doing the job of the GOP and voting opponents. Regardless of our differences, only party unity will give us a chance to defeat them.
If what is being done to preserve democracy now is “too late,” it is too little in the face of a large, well-funded right-wing campaign to rob people of their most basic rights. America and it was too late for that the campaign had been going on for many years. The measures currently proposed, the John Lewis Voting Freedom Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Promotion Act, are critically important. The president and vice president have placed themselves right behind them, even though the odds of them failing are high. It was an act of bravery for which they deserved recognition.
But even if you don’t see it that way, we should try not to blame anyone but what we can do. Passion and idealism can be important allies, but they become enemies when they steer us away from what is truly achievable.
