I used to view American politics as mainly a struggle between capital (big business and the rich) and labor (the rest of us). That conflict still exists, but I think it’s more helpful today to see our politics as a fight about democracy.

Their side wants fewer people to vote. Our side want more people to vote. 

From Greg Sargent of The Washington Post:

Amid the stream of delusion, depravity, malevolence and megalomania that characterized D____ T____’s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, one message should be regarded as arguably more important than all the others combined.

It’s this: The former president told his audience that the Republican Party’s success in coming years depends, in no small part, on its commitment to being an anti-democracy party.

T____ didn’t say this in precisely those words, of course. But that message blared through all the background noise like a loud, clanging alarm bell.

This will require Democrats to redouble their focus on passing their big package of pro-democracy reforms as soon as possible — and to be prepared to nix the legislative filibuster to get it into law. It may be tempting to dismiss or ignore T____’s deranged rantings, but Democrats should see this one message as an actionable one.

As expected, T____’s CPAC speech doubled down on the big lie that the election was stolen from him — and then some. . . .

But embedded in that big lie was an unintentional truth. It was revealed when T____ uncorked an extended riff suggesting that [his party’s] future prospects depend on what he called “election reforms.”

“Another one of the most urgent issues facing the Republican Party is that of ensuring fair, honest, and secure elections,” T____ declared. “We must pass comprehensive election reforms, and we must do it now.”

By “election reforms,” T____ actually meant a redoubled commitment to making it harder to vote. We know this, because he said so: He went on to declare that Democrats had used the “China virus” as an “excuse” to make vote-by-mail easier.

“We can never let that happen again,” T____ said. “We need election integrity and election reform immediately. Republicans should be the party of honest elections.”

This is absurd (Republican legislatures also facilitated vote-by-mail) and full of lies (the election’s legitimacy was upheld in dozens of courts). But that doesn’t change its underlying meaning, which is unambiguous: T____ lost because voting wasn’t hard enough; Republicans must push as forcefully as possible in the opposite direction; this is “urgent.”

The rub of the matter is that all across the country, Republicans are acting on exactly this reading of the situation. [These actions] include sharp cuts to early voting; restricting vote-by-mail in numerous ways; and in the most extreme cases, proposals to allow state legislatures to appoint presidential electors in defiance of the state’s popular vote.

Meanwhile, in numerous states, Republicans are gearing up to use this year’s decennial redrawing of electoral maps to entrench extreme gerrymanders. They have openly declared that this will help them win back the House in 2022 . . . .

Crucially, these efforts are increasingly animated by the same lie about the election’s illegitimacy that T____ told at CPAC. [It’s] their excuse to continue entrenching anti-democratic and anti-majoritarian advantages wherever possible.

This simply requires Democrats to pass the For the People Act in the Senate and House. It includes numerous provisions that would make voting and registration easier; curb restrictions on voting and vote-by-mail; mandate nonpartisan redistricting commissions; and restore voting rights protections gutted by the Supreme Court.

Democrats [must also] be prepared to end the legislative filibuster when Republicans block the package in the Senate. Yes, Democrats face major obstacles to this in the form of Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.).

But a case must be made to those holdouts that Democrats cannot allow Republicans to grind their agenda to a screeching halt — in the face of multiple short and long term crises facing the country — through the exercise of minority rule, facilitated by what has become yet another cynically-wielded tool of counter-majoritarian obstructionism.

“The Big Lie about 2020 is built on an ugly truth: T____ and the Republican Party have turned their backs on our constitutional vision of government of, by, and for the people,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told me in an emailed statement.

“You heard it from T____ himself,” Merkley continued. “We’ve got to get the For the People Act signed into law ASAP so the next elections are decided by the will of the voters, not rigged by corrupt politicians.”

Democrats keep telling us that the prospects for civic renewal in the wake of T____ism’s continued degradations — and the [right’s] ongoing slide into authoritarianism — depend on making government and democracy more functional and responsive. If they really believe this, that imposes obligations on them to do just that. . . .

Taking this idea seriously requires acting where possible to prevent the [Republicans’] increasing radicalization from further wrecking our democratic system. We know exactly what this will look like. T____ just told us so himself.

Unquote.

It might not be possible to get all fifty Democratic senators to agree to abolish the filibuster. But there are other options. This is part of a January article from The Hill called “Senate Democrats Leery of Nixing Filibuster”:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that he supported going back to the talking filibuster — a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”-style change that would let senators block a bill or nominee for as long as they could stay on the floor discussing it . . .

One idea floated by Democrats is trying to get an agreement to enact smaller rules changes that would leave the 60-vote legislative filibuster intact when it comes to ending debate on legislation, but make it easier to move bills on the Senate floor.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who is supportive of filibuster reforms, [said] that outright nixing the 60-vote legislative filibuster was not going to happen in a 50-50 Senate, given opposition from some of his Democratic colleagues: “Let’s figure out ways [to reform Senate rules so] that the minority doesn’t control the place every single day”.