Eli Zupnick of Fix Our Senate: “Despite the alarms from even their own leading election lawyers, Republicans are systematically dismantling the democratic bulwarks that barely held during Trump’s post-election attempt to subvert the last presidential election.”
WASHINGTON, DC — Several articles highlight the growing threat to our democracy posed by President Trump and allies’ plans to potentially subvert the results of the next presidential election. The coverage underscores the existential importance of addressing the filibuster in order to pass legislation to safeguard our democracy.
Barton Gellman’s article in The Atlantic, Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun, offers a comprehensive and chilling reminder about the threat to fair elections and our democracy that is underway:
“Our two-party system has only one party left that is willing to lose an election. The other is willing to win at the cost of breaking things that a democracy cannot live without … If ours is to stand, its defenders have to rouse themselves … Democracy will be on trial in 2024. A strong and clear-eyed president, faced with such a test, would devote his presidency to meeting it. Biden knows better than I do what it looks like when a president fully marshals his power and resources to face a challenge. It doesn’t look like this.”
Meanwhile, Greg Sargent writes in the Washington Post about the “stark warning” issued by leading Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg, paraphrased by Sargent as: “If you don’t act now to protect our system, the losing candidate in the 2024 presidential election might seek to overturn the will of the people — and succeed.”
The call to action to safeguard our democracy must include reforms to the Electoral Count Act of 1887, but legislation to do so is currently blocked by the filibuster. As Sargent summarizes,
“Dems must end the filibuster to reform the ECA. It's unthinkable that Ds would let the filibuster scuttle reforms to avert a future coup, when we *already saw* Trump attempt exactly this scheme, and antidemocratic currents in the GOP are getting worse”
Eli Zupnick, spokesperson for Fix Our Senate, issued the following statement:
“Safeguarding our democracy requires addressing the filibuster.
“Despite the alarms from even their own leading election lawyers, Republicans are systematically dismantling the democratic bulwarks that barely held during Trump’s post-election attempt to subvert the last presidential election. That same Republican Party has filibustered attempts to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol and has blocked any and all federal efforts to protect Americans’ voting rights or strengthen the guardrails of our democracy, while advancing partisan and anti-democratic legislation at the state level.
“It adds up to a set of chilling takeaways that should compel national Democrats to address the filibuster and pass federal laws to protect the health of our democracy before it’s too late.”