If Dems Don't Save Democracy Now They Won't Get Another Shot

[Celerity]

Look at Texas, which is now counting prisoners as a way to build up local Republican districts, for a sense of how bad things could get.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/if-dems-dont-save-democracy-now-they-wont-get-another-shot



We all heard the warnings, about how Democrats were just going through the motions as Republicans mobilized to reshape America’s electorate through sweeping, hyper-partisan gerrymandering. We may even have dismissed them as hyperbole. But no longer. Those warnings are now an urgent, brutal reality.

In Tennessee, state Republicans are preparing to split the Democratic stronghold of Nashville into multiple GOP-dominated districts. Tennessee now offers the roadmap for Republican legislatures in states like Kentucky, Florida, and Arizona to divide and conquer Democrats’ most reliable voter bases. The result will be an undemocratic new era where Republicans enjoy a completely artificial and almost insurmountable electoral advantage in the House of Representatives.

While President Joe Biden rallied party morale with a powerful speech backing voting rights legislation in Atlanta on Tuesday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s Freedom to Vote compromise bill doesn’t go far enough to protect American elections from Republican meddling. Democrats must strengthen its election protection provisions or prepare for a lasting wound to our electoral process and a shellacking in November—one that would be surely followed by even more Republican hijinks to fix the game in their favor.

As the national conversation turns to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s ambitious and fast-approaching Jan. 17 deadline to pass a serious voting reform package, there’s no time to waste in beefing up the softer parts of Manchin’s otherwise admirable bill. In its current form, the Freedom to Vote act would mandate uniform rules for congressional redistricting—and, critically, it covers maps that have already been enacted this cycle. It also boosts transparency around the redistricting process and restores the ability to sue in court over partisan power grabs like what Republicans have planned for Nashville.

snip

[SoonerPride]

1. Exactly how are "Dems" supposed to do anything

I would like to know.

[anti stupid]

2. yes

we only have 48 democratic Senators and 2 assholes. No chance.

[paleotn]

3. And two Dems will be recorded in history

pounding two nails into the coffin of democracy. They should be so proud.

[Celerity]

5. Almost all Rethugs on a national level, & most at state/local levels, are now enemies of democracy

The gop has no responsibility?

Yes, they bear all of the responsibility for the anti-democratic, dystopian nightmare we are very likely headed into.

[Celerity]

8. Change their minds on what? 10 Rethugs are not going to vote for cloture on the voter bills, that

is folly to think that is going to happen.

[BradAllison]

11. "Why doesn't Hitler stop acting evil?" n/m

[qazplm135]

7. I get saying it's going to be hard

I don't get saying it's all over.

It's just quitting.

[Celerity]

9. the article doesn't say to give up

[qazplm135]

13. I don't understand how people don't understand

Words have meaning.
If you say if x doesn't occur than y happens when you already know x isnt going to occur or is in the fact of (not) occuring right in this moment then you can't say you aren't saying y is going to happen.

Either democracy is over or it isn't. This bill clearly isn't passing. So now what? Are we going to move on and try to win or wallow in the end of democracy apocalypse fetish?

[uponit7771]

14. What's the logical outcome? We don't get base voter rights to counter GQP state level bullshit ...

... then how do we expect to win again?

We can't out organize laws that deny access or nullify votes, the GQP isn't a party any longer.

I'm thinking the DOJ goes ham on all the states and starts putting people in jail helping those who further the 1/6 sedition conspiracy justification by making it harder to vote.

Tie those together and prevent the state and local level bullshit from happening, do it at the last minute and force all the courts related to the local areas to make snap decisions ... they wont, they'll take their time again.

Wild assed idea but we need to be creative at this point.

[Celerity]

15. We need to keep trying to get some sort of voter protection bill passed, one that at least

10 Rethugs will vote for cloture on. It is clear the 2 current bills will not be passed, but we need to try and get something done.

Do I think that will happen? Probably not.

So then we need to try and overcome all the obstacles and hold the Senate (at least, as the House is going to be extremely hard to hold for a myriad number of reasons) in the 2022 Midterms.

If we lose both chambers in 2022, then it literally is a final showdown in 2024. If (this is a worst case nightmare scenario) we, in 2024, fail to retake both chambers, and Trump (again, this is worst case) wins the POTUS back, especially if it us by nefarious means like EV slate switches which a SCOTIS backs up, then we can start to talk about a truly dystopian nightmare in terms of living, coping (and perhaps leaving for those that can) in a profoundly broken, fascist-overrun USA.

Lots of miles to trod before we are there at that worst case scenario. We will all know the outcome (if it goes completely pear shaped) 3 years, 6 days from now.

[qazplm135]

16. So

We will get another chance after all then

[Celerity]

17. well since I typed that reply, there is this

Biden all but concedes defeat on voting, election bills

https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-joe-biden-voting-elections-wv-state-wire-28fce7f5190404f5091158c912bf8d5d

WASHINGTON (AP) — All but conceding defeat, President Joe Biden said Thursday he’s now unsure the Democrats’ major elections and voting rights legislation can pass Congress this year. He spoke at the Capitol after a key fellow Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, dramatically announced her refusal to go along with changing Senate rules to muscle the bill past a Republican filibuster.

Biden had come to the Capitol to prod Democratic senators in a closed-door meeting, but he was not optimistic when he emerged from the hourlong session. He vowed to keep fighting for the sweeping legislation that advocates say is vital to protecting elections. “The honest to God answer is I don’t know whether we can get this done,” Biden said. He told reporters, his voice rising, “As long as I’m in the White House, as long as I’m engaged at all, I’m going to be fighting.”

Sinema all but dashed the bill’s chances minutes earlier, declaring just before Biden arrived on Capitol Hill that she could not support a “short sighted” rules change. She said in a speech on the Senate floor that the answer to divisiveness in the Senate and in the country is not to change filibuster rules so one party, even hers, can pass controversial bills. “We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy,” she said.

The moment once again leaves Biden empty-handed after a high-profile visit to Congress. Earlier forays did little to advance his other big priority, the “Build Back Better Act” of social and climate change initiatives. Instead, Biden returned to the White House with his agenda languishing in Congress. Biden spoke for more than an hour in private with restive Democrats in the Senate, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who also opposes changing Senate rules.

Manchin said in a statement later: “Ending the filibuster would be the easy way out. I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation.” Both senators went to the White Thursday evening for an additional hour. There was no immediate readout on that discussion. Since taking control of Congress and the White House last year, Democrats have vowed to counteract a wave of new state laws, inspired by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, that have made it harder to vote. But their efforts have stalled in the narrowly divided Senate, where they lack the 60 votes out of 100 to overcome a Republican filibuster.

snip

[qazplm135]

18. This has been the obvious result for months

I just don't understand people expected anything else or kept selling the idea that somehow they would come around. They never were.

I get having the vote anyways. Hell vote on it every day, but we are long past the time where we move on and start working to mitigate and fight for a win.

We have a history of working around voter suppression that goes back generations and I'm not buying that somehow this time Republicans have perfected it and we can't win again.

If I'm right then fatalism kills us, if I'm wrong then it doesn't matter anyways. Logic says drive on, adapt and overcome.

[Celerity]

19. of course we should try to win

[EndlessWire]

21. But we can blame

Manchin and Sinema for their roles. Biden personally visiting with them after the speech she made indicates that despite personal persuasion by the POTUS himself, they want to doom the bills. And Biden seems prepared to move on to a new tactic.

I wonder what personal grievance and fear they both have when they are willing to defeat voting rights--such a fundamental principle of Democracy--in favor of--what?? Are they so stupid that they can't SEE? These people seem downright evil. I have tried to understand their motivation, but I don't think that it is patriotism. I think it is all self interest.

[ChazII]

20. k&R n/t

[betsuni]

22. Another "Why don't Dems stop ___ ?"