Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

Things in America are NOT normal and we (voters as well as our elected leaders) have to stop pretending they are. One of our two parties has become authoritarian, fascist, irrational, outwardly racist and sexist, and has abandoned all pretense of caring about our Democracy or the American people. (Hint: I'm not talking about the Democrats).

Charlie Sykes/Bulwark:

Misreading the Politics of “Normalcy”

These are profoundly abnormal times.

Biden and his allies need to disabuse themselves of the notion that we will see a return to “normalcy” anytime soon.

That means a re-calibration not only of his agenda, but his rhetoric, and the let’s-return-to-the-old-norms approach of his Justice Department. (Grand juries, anyone? Special Counsels?)

Perhaps Democrats could also take a break from their own internecine bloodletting long enough to make the case that the GOP has become an extremist, nihilistic, and reckless danger to the Republic.

If democracy really does face an existential crisis, perhaps the Administration and Congress should act like it.

Angus King/Boston Globe:

A constitutional crisis is unfolding before our eyes

History shows us that our system is not guaranteed, and democratic experiments can fail — rarely from external attack, almost always from the corrosion of the system from within.

It doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Congress has the constitutional authority to change direction and protect the democratic process by enacting a set of basic guardrails to maintain the sacred right to vote. We must claim that role as the trustees of a tradition that goes back to Jefferson and Lincoln, carried on by Margaret Chase Smith, John McCain, and countless others. All were partisans to an extent, but all shared an overriding commitment to the idea that animates the American experiment. The idea that the people — all the people — are the ultimate arbiters of power.

Getting rid of Trump was the start. We have to continue to reform our institutions, strengthen and guarantee voting rights, fight against right wing terror, intimidation and attacks on our rights, and vote against Republicans every single time.

Our democracy, our freedoms, depend on it. The American story does not necessarily lead to a happy ending, and if we don't do the right thing, right now, it won't.