American Democracy and the Political Reality

Yesterday, Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman laid out the political reality: (i) By 2022, Republican-controlled legislatures in key states will have enacted laws that will make it much harder for Democrats to win elections; (ii) With the help of two complicit Democratic senators, Republicans have blocked passage of federal legislation that would protect voting rights; and (iii) a solid majority of ideologically driven justices of the Supreme Court have demonstrated that they won’t invalidate state-enacted laws relating to the electoral process. As a result, Democrats will have to make prodigious efforts to have a chance of stopping Republicans from taking control of Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024. If Democrats fail to win this uphill battle, Republicans will likely be able to rig the system even more tightly in their favor and achieve long-term one-party minority rule, thereby supplanting American democracy with an authoritarian form of government.