Democratic leaders are betraying Black voters
Democratic leaders have a plan for overcoming the Republican Party’s attempts to restrict the franchise: Just vote harder.
Civil-rights leaders expressed their frustrations to The New York Times last week, telling the outlet that “White House officials and close allies of the president have expressed confidence that it is possible to ‘out-organize voter suppression.’”
Following Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, Republican-led states have engaged in a massive campaign to narrow voting access, spurred on by the falsehood that Trump’s loss was the result of widespread voter fraud. Despite Republicans losing both houses of Congress and the White House during the Trump years, the former president’s relatively strong 2020 showing left Democrats with thin margins in the House and Senate, and key Democrats are unwilling to alter Senate rules in order to pass voting-rights legislation by a simple majority. The position of Democratic leaders is perhaps less a plan than what they believe is their only course of action.
Unfortunately, the Republican scheme to insulate the party’s political power from accountability to the American majority cannot be overcome by enthusiasm. Despite the other ideological divisions within the party, all elements of the GOP have long been on the same page when it comes to using the countermajoritarian levers of American democracy to shield themselves from the electorate. [Continue reading…]