The best defense is a good offense

Not only did Republicans let Trump off the hook for inciting sedition, they want to use his false claims to justify a wave of vote suppression. After a COVID relief bill is passed, the top Dem priority should be to address this:

Now that the vast majority of Senate Republicans voted to acquit former president Donald Trump of inciting violent insurrection, as we all knew they would, Democrats should immediately respond as follows:

1. Pass H.R.1 and S.1 with all deliberate speed.

2. Be prepared to nuke the legislative filibuster if and when Republicans obstruct it in the Senate.

3. Get the package into law as quickly as possible.

Those are the House and Senate bills that would expand voting rights, make voting easier in numerous ways and place limits on counter-majoritarian tactics such as voter suppression and gerrymandering, which Republicans are cheerfully escalating in numerous states.

Here’s what the moment requires, above all: Democrats must accept the full implications of the GOP’s ongoing and intensifying radicalization. And they must be prepared to act upon them.

Alas, I suspect our “you can take the girl out of Naderism but…” representative from Arizona might be an even bigger problem than the one from West Virginia:

"Krysten Sinema went from being an early 2000s-era Green Party activist to a quasi-reactionary with an insane and nonsensical view of how government power works" is maybe less of a journey than people think— Michael Tae Sweeney (@mtsw) February 13, 2021