September 25, 2021
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Sep 26 |
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For weeks now,
I have vowed that I would finish these letters early and get to bed before
midnight, and for weeks now, I have finally finished around three in the
morning. That was not the case two years ago, when I started writing these at
the start of the Ukraine crisis: it was rare enough for me to be writing until
midnight that I vividly remember the first time it happened.
I got to
thinking today about why things seem more demanding today than they did two
years ago, and it strikes me that what makes the writing more time consuming
these days is that we have two all-consuming stories running in parallel, and
together they illuminate the grand struggle we are in for the survival of
American democracy.
On the one
hand we have the former president and the attempts by him and his loyalists to
seize control of our country regardless of the will of the majority of voters,
while Republican Party leaders are refusing to speak out in the hopes that they
can retain power to continue advancing their agenda.
Since the
1980s, this branch of the Republican Party has tried to dismantle the
government in place since the 1930s that tries to protect equality in America,
regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, and promoting
infrastructure. Members of this faction of the Republican Party—the faction
that is now in control of it—want to take the government back to the 1920s,
when businessmen controlled the government, operating it to try to create a
booming economy without regard for social or environmental consequences.
Although
initially unhappy at Donald Trump’s elevation to the White House, that faction
embraced him as he advanced the tax cuts, deregulation, and destruction of
government offices they believed were central to freeing businessmen to advance
the economy. Believing that Democrats’ determination to use the government to
level the playing field among Americans would destroy the individualism that
supports the economy, they had come to believe that Democrats could not
legitimately govern the country. And so, members of this Republican faction did
not back away when Trump refused to accept the election of a Democratic
president in 2020.
Almost a year
later, the leadership of the Republican Party, composed now as it is of Trump
loyalists, is undermining our democracy. It has fallen in line behind Trump’s
Big Lie that he and not Biden won the 2020 election, and that the Democratic
Party engaged in voter fraud to install their candidate. This is a lie, but
Republicans at the state level are using that lie to justify new election laws
that suppress Democratic votes and put control of state elections into their
own hands. If those laws are allowed to stand, we will be a democracy in name
only. We will likely still have elections, but, just as in Russia or Hungary
now, the mechanics of the system will mean that only the president’s party can
win.
This attack on
our democracy is unprecedented, and it cannot be ignored. Tonight, for example,
Trump held a “rally” in Perry, Georgia, where, to cheers, he straight up lied
that the recent “audit” in Arizona proved he won the 2020 election. And yet, to
overemphasize the antics of the former president and his supporters enables
them to grow to larger proportions than they deserve, feeding their power.
Tonight, for example, Newsmax and OAN covered Trump’s rally live, but the Fox
News Channel did not, and the audience appeared bored.
On the other
hand, in contrast to the former president's party, President Joe Biden and the
Democrats are trying to demonstrate that democracy actually works. Rather than
simply fighting the Republicans, which would permit the Republicans to define
the terms under which they govern, they are defending the active government the
Republicans have set out to destroy. Biden has been clear since he took office
that he intends to strengthen democracy abroad, where it is under pressure from
rising autocratic governments, by strengthening it at home.
To that end,
he and the Democrats in Congress have aggressively worked to pass legislation
that benefits ordinary Americans. The wait for such legislation to appear can
be frustrating, but that is in part because the Democrats are actually doing
the kind of work that used to be commonplace in Congress: hammering out
compromises, finding votes, arguing, amending legislation.
Today, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) released a letter she sent to her caucus, telling
members they must vote this week to pass a continuing resolution to fund the
government, as well as the two major infrastructure bills on which they have
been working for months: the Build Back Better Act and the bipartisan
infrastructure bill. While news stories have often turned the negotiations over
these bills into a fight between moderate and progressive Democrats, it is
important to remember that while a handful of Republicans were willing to agree
to rebuild roads and bridges and to bring broadband to rural areas, most of
them are simply not negotiating at all. They reject the idea that the
government should invest in infrastructure, especially that kind outlined in
the Build Back Better measure: infrastructure involving childcare, elder care,
and climate change. And if they can run out the clock and convince voters that
government can’t get anything done, so much the better.
Democrats disagree
about the details of their measures—exactly as one would expect from a big-tent
party—but they all accept the principle that the government should actively
help ordinary Americans. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) might disagree on the size of the infrastructure
package they want, but they both agree that the government should support
infrastructure.
Republicans
reject that idea, standing instead on the principle that the government should
simply stay out of the way of businessmen, who are better equipped to manage
the country than bureaucrats. The Charles Koch–backed Americans for Prosperity,
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Federation of Independent
Business are all pouring money into defeating the $3.5 trillion Build Back
Better bill, warning: “A government takeover of our economy is a fundamental
departure from the spirit of entrepreneurialism we’ve relied on for generations
to drive prosperity, and there’s only one outcome—unmitigated economic disaster
that will be difficult to reverse.”
The profound
disagreement between the Republicans and the Democrats over the role of
government has led to a profound crisis in our democracy. Democrats’ argument
that the government should work for ordinary Americans is popular, so popular
that Republicans have apparently given up convincing voters their way is
better. Through voter suppression, gerrymandering, the filibuster, and the
Electoral College, and now with new election laws in 18 states, they have
guaranteed that they will retain control no matter what voters actually want.
Their determination to keep Democrats from power has made them abandon
democracy.
For their
part, Democrats are trying to protect the voting rights at the heart of our
democracy, believing that if all eligible Americans can vote, they will back a
government that works for the people.
And so, the
task of writing these letters has gotten more complicated of late. I try to
detail the growing threat that the Republicans will succeed in destroying our
democracy while also explaining the ways in which the Biden administration is
trying to move beyond the current crisis to demonstrate the vitality of
American democracy.
And, always, I
try to keep front and center that these fights are not academic. They are,
fundamentally, a fight to determine whether a nation, “conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...can long
endure.”
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