Biden is right that our democracy is in peril. But it's been in peril since its inception

Most of the anti-democratic actions that people are so upset about are nothing new and have been inflicted on Americans since the beginning of the country. However, the brunt of these actions have been borne by minorities - particularly African Americans and Native Americans. To a lesser degree, immigrants have also been subjected to this treatment, but most immigrants were able to move into the mainstream within a generation or two and often joined the ranks of those causing the harm.

Women have also been the victims of this, but unlike Blacks, Indians and immigrants, white women enjoyed a large measure of protection and privilege so that even the most anti-democratic tactics didn't have the same effect on them - and were often inflicted on others for their "protection."

Black voters have consistently been oppressed to varying degrees by white politicians. What we're seeing now isn't even close to the worst of it. And in the last decade, when the voter suppression laws began to ramp up again, many white voters ignored them, thinking they weren't a serious problem worth expending much energy over because it didn't interfere with their right to vote.

Now, however, those anti-democratic tactics are bleeding over to white citizens and they're feeling some of the pain and fear that Blacks and other minorities have dealt with for centuries. So it FEELS to them like suddenly democracy is in trouble when the truth is that not only is democracy by its very nature always precarious anyway, but it has consistently been under threat by forces who abused their power to oppress large swaths of Americans, often with impunity.

Many people of color are watching the reaction of our white friends and neighbors to the recent abuses and thinking "Welcome to OUR world. Now that you're experiencing what we've been telling you about, maybe you'll understand what's at stake and finally join us in fighting to keep the democracy from falling apart."

Democracy is always in peril because it is a fragile system and there are always people hellbent on thwarting it. It must be protected at all times, not just when the majority begins to feel the threat.

Some Democrats treat the House and Senate like Republicans treat our schools

Republicans look down on educators who are busting their hind ends trying to make the most of the meager resources they're given, tell them they suck at what they do, respond to their pleas for more help with threats that if they don't do a better job with what they have, they're going to take away even more of their resources. Then they take away those resources and point at them, saying "They're not educating your children. Why should you give any more of your hard-earned money to them?"

Some of the folks in our camp have taken a page out of the Republican playbook and are doing the same thing to House and Senate Democrats.

The Democrats are barely hanging on by their fingernails with the slimmest of a majority margin. They are doing the absolute best they can with what they have and keep telling us that in order to do more, they need a larger majority.

So, what do the naysayer do? Smack them around, call them weak and spineless, and threaten that if they don't straighten up and "get tougher," they will refuse to vote for them next time, thereby helping to take away the skinny margin they have, and let McConnell, McCarthy and the Republicans take over.

It doesn't make any more sense when Democrats do it to fellow Democrats than it does when Republicans do it to educators.

Shout out to Texas Dems

Thank you!

WP: "Why conservatives really fear Critical Race Theory"

Excellent piece. But they are obviously treading lightly. It should be headlined "Why many white people really fear Critical Race Theory" since, as we've seen on this board, this fear isn't limited to conservatives.

BREAKING in WP: Grand jury convened in Trump case in New York

An excellent take on white privilege and Critical Race Theory in a nutshell

My niece, a teacher, broke up a knife fight today

She got right in the middle of it and pulled one knife-wielding student off of a fellow student he had pinned to the ground. She then managed to move the student with the knife to another area, calmed him down down, and got him to turn over the knife.

She didn't have a gun and didn't have to shoot anyone.

Teachers across the country probably do this every week. So please spare us "the cop had to shoot to kill because s/he posed a deadly threat and the only way to stop them was to shoot them on the spot" justifications for police killing Black civilians.

Many police killings of unarmed black men are not to protect, but to punish and make an example

Most of the cases we see stem from an angry or irrationally frightened cop reacting with deadly force to a black person not complying with their orders. They usually don't involve any real threat to the officer or any bystanders. They come about because the officer is angry that the person didn't do exactly as they told or, God forbid, tried to run away.

In other words, these black people are all too often executed - frequently after being abused, degraded, and tortured - by police, not because they pose any danger to them, but because they are not obedient in the officer's eyes and need to be taught a lesson - and so do other uppity black people who don't show sufficient respect to law enforcement.

There is a much shorter way to describe what this is.

Lynching.

Pelosi and Schumer are playing this beautifully. They're Benghazi-proofing the investigation

It's looking more and more like the 1/6 investigation will have to be done by a Congressional select committee, as the Benghazi "investigation" was.

But unlike the Benghazi proceedings, which were just rammed through with no attempt at bipartisan cooperation or even the appearance of seriousness, this route is being taken ONLY because the Republicans blew up attempts to include them as partners in the effort. Any whines about partisanship and "witchhunts" can and will be easily countered with reminders of all the Democrats did to try to reach out to Republicans it to have their hands slapped away.

Now a committee can dig deep into what led up to that day. And remember, unlike in the Trump era when Congress had little ability to enforce subpoenas, we now have a real Justice Department that will enforce Congressional subpoenas we with the full force of the law.

Nicely played, Madam Speaker and Mr. Majority Leader!

Remember how we demanded that Barr's "first cut" of the Mueller Report not be accepted fact?

At the time Barr gave us his version of the Mueller Report, he'd only been on the job a few weeks and had not yet established a reputation as an outright liar and enabler of a criminal president. Yet we all knew he could not be trusted and were furious that so many in the media and elsewhere accepted his characterization of Mueller's findings as true.

Yet many of the same people who knew better than to accept anything Barr said at face value are very quick to accept the "official" version of police shootings of Black civilians. Almost without fail, whenever a cop shoots a Black person, these people - many of whom identify as progressive - immediate believe the cops' story about why the killing or excessive use of force was justified and swallow whole their claims that their victim was a dangerous person who would have caused deadly harm had they not been taken down on the spot.

They give the police this benefit of the doubt despite the fact that, unlike Barr, law enforcement has a long, demonstrable, and tragic track record of not only abusing and killing Black people at an alarming, disproportionate rate, but of lying about it unashamedly, as evidenced AGAIN by the horrifying incident in Louisiana when police tortured and lynched a suspect and then claimed he died in a car accident.

And even worse, these people who believe the police so blindly pretend that they aren't picking sides but are merely refusing to "jump to conclusions," treating the police version of the incident as the objective, non-biased perspective, while insisting everyone should believe the police unless an investigation proves they were wrong. According to them, assuming the police did something wrong is unfair to the police. In the meantime, they adopt, repeat, and disseminate the police smear of the dead person, who, of course, is in no position to tell their side or defend themselves. The police who killed them said they were bad people, so that's good enough for them.

If Bill Barr's version of events shouldn't be believed just because he said so, surely the official police version of events should be treated with considerably more skepticism than it is, especially when the cops have everything to gain by lying about their actions. They long ago relinquished any entitlement to be given the benefit of the doubt.