The Democrats have no choice but to proceed with options 3 or 4. As we saw how the attempted coup by Trump on January 6 came perilously close to stopping the Electoral College vote count and certification of the Presidential and Vice Presidential winners, our experiment in rule by the people is hanging by a thread.
Yes, the Democrats are taking a risk with filibuster options 3 and 4 that McConnell, if he becomes majority leader in 2023, could use the evasion of the filibuster to decimate Democratic programs, pass huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and pass "red meat" cultural issues. However, he's going to do that anyway, given the chance.
But there is no choice. If the Democrats don't stop the hundreds of voter suppression, gerrymandering, voter enrollment hurdles and other efforts by Republicans to steal the 2022 election, we will morph into a one-party authoritarian minority white supremacist government, with someone like Josh Hawley perhaps becoming president in 2024. Either the Democrats take the risk of taking on the filibuster immediately, or de facto the tsunami of voter purges, mail-in ballot restricions, notarization requirements, reduction of early voting days, etc., will mean the Democrats will likely lose power in both houses of Congress in 2022.
It's not a choice; it's a necessity, with democracy hanging in the balance.
And then there is the debt written in the vile and bloody original sin of slavery, which was unforgivably compromised by the North to join with the South to create this nation. My colleague Greg Palast has pointed out to me many a time that sometimes the Democratic Party has been missing in action when it comes to protecting the voting rights of Blacks in oppressive states in advance of an election (take for instance purging), although there is always a surge of interest once the voting is being counted.
Blacks are the bedrock and the most loyal base of the Democratic Party. Stacey Abrams has shown that the Democrats as a Party have been derelict in creating grassroots networks of Black voters, and we owe her for her tenacious determination that resulted in the Democrats winning the Senate and Joe Biden winning the state of Georgia.
Blacks have paid their dues in blood, perseverance and faith, amidst the legacy of racism in our society.
Alice Walker said, "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
The vote represents enormous significance to most Blacks. It is the inviolate symbol of their full citizenship in a society that they came to in chains as chattel.
Martin Luther King, Jr., noted of the harrowing journey from slavery to a citizenship that Republicans are still trying to deny, to "cancel": --Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper."
Biden has shown that the Democrats have developed a backbone and the beginnings of a transformative vision. It cannot stop with one historically innovative bill that recognizes the needs of the people to whom GOP tax cuts have never trickled down.
Democrats must defend the Black vote at this inflection point because it is a sacred debt and because democracy depends upon it.
Clarification: The $1.9 trillion COVID relief act was passed using the budget reconciliation process, which occurs once a year and only requires 51 votes for passage. This year, because there was not a budget reconciliation vote last year, the Dems will have one more opportunity to use the budget reconciliation filibuster bypass. In all likelihood, it will be saved for a massive infrastructure bill later this year.
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