Democrats Chose Performative Legislation in 2021 Over Genuine Electoral Reforms

Two weeks ago the bill came due.

While there is no shortage of people criticizing the Democratic Party post-election, not enough attention is being paid to their complete failure in 2021 to address weaknesses in our electoral system, allowing Republicans to aggressively pass voter suppression laws at the state level in the years since.

This failure made already bad electoral math far, far worse.

Four years ago, after a close election and months of lies about its legitimacy, there was a violent riot in the Capital attempting to disrupt the certification of the vote because 40% of the country (still) believes that the 2020 election was not legitimate.

That is a four-alarm fire for democracy!

How did the Democrats react? They put forward one piece of legislation (HR 1) with minimal fanfare, a purely performative bit of politicking that reads like a wishlist from every left-leaning electoral reform group ever. It was nothing but virtue-signaling and had zero chance of ever passing the Senate.

And that’s it…that was the entirety of the Democratic Party’s response to a clear & present danger to our democracy.

Democrats could have introduced legislation…

~~  Setting clear rules around gerrymandering.

~~  Mandating a certain number of polling places per capita, providing additional funding to states to run & safeguard their elections.

~~  Making it easier for voters in states requiring voter ID to actually obtain one.

~~ Clarifying rules on overseas and absentee ballots.

~~  Safeguarding the vote by requiring states using electronic voting machines to provide a printout so voters could verify that their vote had been tabulated correctly, while providing a clear paper trail for any audits and/or recounts.

They did none of these things.

Even had they tried to introduce these (or similar) measures and failed, it would have brought public attention to the issues.

Instead, they vacated the field and let Republicans run wild, enacting voter suppression laws around the country with little public notice. It was a failure at every level – political, strategic, and moral.

Any analysis of how the Democrats lost in 2024 that does not account for this failure is fundamentally flawed.

This is a bit of a preview of the next subject I will be tackling (not finger-pointing, electoral reforms) once I finish breaking down radical right-wing media’s ironclad hold on half this country.

Meanwhile, Democrats and their allies are going to have to quickly decide how they want to approach the upcoming years. I believe focusing on fixing some of the flaws in our electoral system and restoring people’s confidence in it should absolutely be part of that puzzle.

More on that soon. In the meantime, please consider sharing and subscribing to this newsletter.

Thank you!