The fight for democracy is bigger than HR-1

Political equality and the defense of the republic need something more

(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

A bunch of different things are colliding in the discourse recently in a way that I think is generating confusion, and I’d like to try to unpack them.

Basically you have:

• Republicans advancing many state-level bills that make it harder to vote.

• The Republican Party as a whole embracing the “big lie” narrative that the 2020 election was stolen.

• Republicans advancing some state-level bills that would make it easier for partisan elected officials to mess with vote counting.

• Democrats pushing the HR-1 political reform package that already passed the House and the Senate.

• Democrats also teeing up a different bill, HR-4, that’s basically a Voting Rights Act reauthorization in the House.

• Bills can’t pass the Senate because of the filibuster.

• Under pressure to break the filibuster to pass HR-1, Joe Manchin says that he actually no longer supports the bill and thinks political reform should be bipartisan.

If you jam these occurrences together, you can craft a narrat…