The Biden administration needs to take democracy issues much more seriously
The administration’s approach makes strategic sense at first glance. It is unlikely that major voting rights legislation will pass, since Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) seem unwilling to change the filibuster rules. And getting the president involved in a high-profile fight he is likely to lose isn’t usually a great political move. You could argue that Biden getting other parts of his agenda passed, and thereby boosting his poll numbers, is the best strategy to defend democracy. After all, the simplest way to limit anti-voting laws is keeping as many Republicans as possible out of office.
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But there are two problems with this strategy. First, it assumes that voters will reward Biden for his successes on other issues — and that there will be a political backlash if he pushes hard on a pro-democracy bill and it fails. So far in Biden’s presidency, the economy is booming, millions of Americans have been vaccinated, and the stimulus bill’s cash payments and child tax credits have (or soon will) put money in the pockets of millions. But as Crooked Media’s Brian Beutler wrote recently, Biden’s impressive policy achievements aren’t redounding much to his political benefit.
The president’s approval rating was 53 percent at the start of his term, with his disapproval at 36 percent, according to a FiveThirtyEight average of polls. Today his approval rating is 52 percent and disapproval 42 percent. Maybe Biden’s ratings would have declined even more if his policies were unsuccessful. But the more likely scenario is that American voters are largely divided into two camps, with a few swing voters who don’t pay much attention to politics — so the relative success or failure of various presidential policy initiatives doesn’t shift the electorate that much.
Second, even if Biden keeps up — or boosts — his approval rating and most voters back the Democrats in next year’s elections, there is a real possibility that Republicans will win the House, Senate and key state-level races anyway thanks in part to aggressive gerrymandering, voting restrictions and other election rigging. Arguably, new federal election laws are essential to Democrats having a fair chance, particularly in the U.S. House and state legislatures, where gerrymandering can really dilute the Democratic vote.
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Put all that together and the political case for Biden not interjecting himself into these democracy issues is at best contested. The moral cause for Biden pushing hard on these issues, however, is clear. Republicans are taking steps that make the United States less democratic, often targeting demographic groups like Black people who largely voted for Biden; and both the project of American democracy and the Americans being targeted by Republicans deserve an aggressive defense from Biden’s administration.
What would a full-throated defense look like?
A clear statement from the president about why the filibuster must go if it is the barrier to federal voting rights legislation.
The White House using its bully pulpit to educate Americans (including perhaps Manchin and Sinema) about the hard fights that were necessary to enact civil rights laws in previous eras. The post-Civil War constitutional amendments to give Black people equal protection under the law (14th) and voting rights (15th) were passed on a party-line basis, with the anti-Black party at that time (the Democrats) providing zero votes in Congress. Enacting civil rights legislation in the 1960s was also deeply divisive.
A sustained White House campaign for the voting rights bills that would be so obvious that reporters will have to write “Biden’s voting rights initiative failed” if nothing passes.
Forceful condemnation of the GOP-backed laws being adopted across the country to essentially ban honest discussions of racism. These provisions are as anti-democratic — and targeted to punish Black people — as the anti-voting ones.
In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson pushed civil rights legislation hard, over the objections of some of his political allies who felt it was too risky. “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for,” he is purported to have said. Biden has been an excellent president on many issues. But so far, he’s fallen short on democracy defense — and that is the most important issue, the issue that his presidency is for, after his predecessor essentially tried to end America’s democracy. Biden’s approach needs to change — immediately.
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