Beset by a seemingly never-ending pandemic, soaring economic insecurity and inequality, widespread distrust of government, and Trumpist efforts to subvert election boards and amass power locally, the US is hurtling towards catastrophe.
Joe Biden’s election victory bought time. Given Barack Obama’s 2016 assessment that Donald Trump was a “fascist”, Hillary Clinton’s recent warning that Trump is an aspiring tyrant, and Biden’s declaration that the 2020 election was “a battle for the soul of the nation”, you might have imagined that, upon achieving a congressional majority and the presidency, Democrats would have seized the opportunity to pass an emergency package of reforms to protect American democracy. Sadly, you would have been wrong.
A year on from the 6 January Capitol riots, the US seems to be further than ever from resolving its political crises. Neo-Nazi extremists are regrouping and continuing to organize. The archaic, anti-democratic filibuster stymies progress by effectively requiring a 60-vote Senate supermajority for most legislation. Rather than jettisoning the filibuster posthaste, the Democrats equivocate. As late as July 2021, Biden nonsensically defended the filibuster. It took until October for the president to cautiously support a limited exception for voting rights reforms. Only now are the Democrats inching towards rule changes that might allow them to actually get things done.
