Outside the Beltway

Empowering authoritarians.

Our insistence on relying on an 18th Century understanding of electoral systems is our ongoing bane (if one values representative government).

Yes, partisanship is real. And it influences more than just voting behavior.

It really does feel like a daily occurrence.

Defense of the filibuster tend to be a combo of mistakes and mythology.

The fixes worsen the stated problem (more on Iowa and other states’ attempts to restrict voting).

Making it harder to vote in Iowa.

HR1 is a national approach to expanding voter access. State legislatures are trying to both expand and restrict the vote as well.

And what GOP opposition says about the party.

A story that is both unserious and yet emblematic of our age in a serious way.

A CPAC speaker and the return of the problem of the Heritage electoral fraud database.

Yet another reminder about pathologies of US democracy.

The man most famous for getting screwed out of a Supreme Court seat has a more interesting backstory.

The reflections on the departed right-wing talk host continue.

America’s institutions are undemocratic but only some of them are a product of the Constitution.

Some reflections

The distance in accountability between the highest and the lowest must be shortened.

Some marginal Republican formers are thinking about maybe doing somethingoranother.

Most Americans have never even heard of it.

Specifically: the former confederacy and Democratic dominance.

It is not a tool to foster compromise. It is tool of obstruction, plain and simple.

Voting ourselves out of this mess is not so easy

Historical precedents fall apart when we’re in a truly unprecedented time.

The Republican Party is not really a thing.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her top officials are under house arrest.

Let me point you to a reform proposal.

American political parties are controlled by the primaries.

The hidden wokeness of our new Critical Theory-loving President.

Biden’s America is a place and idea in which the trappings of empire or glory are ephemera in comparison with perennial human relationships—families; friendships; communities; schools; neighbors; partners.

The aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riots runs into the First Amendment,

Will there be in-fighting? Yes. A break-up? No.

The 45th President will go down in infamy, setting a record that’s unlikely to be broken.

The #3 Republican in the House will vote to impeach.

The New England Patriots coach lived up to the team nickname.

There are multiple ongoing plots and reasonable fear of infiltration of security forces.

The live coverage of Wednesday’s assault on American democracy underplayed its seriousness.

As we assess Trump’s role in all of this, it is important to think through what he did (and did not) do.

There’s a word for people who use outrageous violence to terrorize.

Trump’s lack of fealty to truth and reality gives supporters an out (if they choose it).

A large, well-trained police force was unprepared for a foreseeable crisis.

The President of the United States is a national security threat. Can we get rid of him now?

It’s finally officially official.

We’ve shouldn’t be surprised we’ve arrived at this destination.

The predictable, indeed inevitable, has happened.

A startling number than may understate the problem.

AZ, GA, and Pa are on the table.

The President who promised to “Make America Great Again” has made her a laughingstock. And worse.

On the op/ed page of WaPo, the 10 living former U.S. secretaries of defense say things that shouldn’t have to be said.

The absurd notion that the President of Senate is the arbiter and judge of the electoral vote.

It will be symbolic, but the symbol will be an anti-democratic one.