Q: How do we know our democracy is broken?

A: When the majority wants things it just can’t get.

On yesterday’s episode of Deadline Whitehouse, Matthew Dowd broke it down for us. Whether we’re talking about preserving voting rights; increasing availability of health insurance; enacting gun reform; or guaranteeing equality for women and people of color, the majority of Americans have made it clear they want a true democracy. Republicans, on the other hand, are doing everything they can to prevent that.

“They want a tyranny of the minority…they fundamentally don’t want the voices of all of America to be heard.”

If you’ve been following the rampant Republican rush to curtail voting rights, you already know the filibuster has thus far kept Dems from protecting voting rights on a national level, despite the fact that more than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.

While it’s also true that over 900 bills with expansive provisions have been introduced, those that have passed have done so largely in states where access to voting is already strong. The larger threat is the Republican push to redirect the vote count away from state Secretaries of State and into the hands of state legislatures.