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We moderate Democrats understand that this doesn’t look good to us. With an embarrassing loss in Virginia and our opposition to social spending, we can see how everyday Americans may think that choosing a Democrat doesn’t mean much to them these days. But that’s not true! Why? Because we just said it isn’t. Remember this in 2022.

We all want many things, but we have to be realistic. Nobody wants Joe Biden to be FDR because FDR is dead and Joe Biden is technically alive enough to be considered alive. But that doesn’t mean we’re not committed to change! Despite our concerns about elements of the Build Back Better Act, we are determined to change the lives of ordinary Americans. We hate arguing all the time about what all of you really “need” to “live” or whatever, but in order to make the wait worth the wait, here are some budget tips to help you help yourself:

● If you have difficulty paying the rent, get the “Bachelor” deductible. The show’s definition of being there “for the right reasons” is pretty broad, so it definitely covers living. If you leave, you should consider renting out your second or third home.

● Save a little on paying taxes. We all do it! Some people may be concerned about pissing off the IRS, but have you tried talking to them on the phone and crying? My accountant does this thing where whenever the IRS calls him, he says he can’t find his glasses, hangs up and then moves to another state. You are welcome to borrow one of his burner cell phones.

● It is very easy to get a second job now. Some would say the reason the labor shortage is because people don’t want to risk their lives by doing exhausting jobs for poverty wages. I would say I’m on a boat right now. We all have to make sacrifices to make ends meet, and for some people that means taking two minimum wage jobs, while for me that sometimes means seasickness. We’ll both be equally good

● Do sideline jobs like candle making, bootleg dentistry, or whatever else you can find with Michael. When your sideline gets going, you can make a living doing what you love! Until you don’t love it anymore because it has become a stressful chore.

● Find places in your budget where you can make cuts. Do you have to spend that much money on Tums, for example? Rough.

● We heard a lot about selling footprints?

● Critics say the problem with the Democratic Party is that we are too awake. So feel free to test a few insults and see if that gets your finances in order at all.

● Unfortunately, we could not include anything about student loan waivers in the bill because Kyrsten Sinema got us involved in an MLM program and now we have to unload hundreds of kitchen knives by the end of the week. But you can save money on student debt payment for the next year by Googling “fake name fake identity fake life trick Sallie Mae like” in Incognito mode. Besides, hey how would you feel about buying a knife?

● Have you already chosen an arch?

● At the end of these four weeks of paid parental leave, save on childcare costs by letting your baby float in a hot air balloon until the next day off.

● We wanted to get Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with drug companies, but then we realized that unfortunately this could make drug companies feel guilty. But that doesn’t mean you can’t! Save on expensive recipes by getting your grandpa to fight Eli Lilly with his bare hands.

● When you think that you don’t have enough money, distract yourself with another problem. This is what we do We’re worried about climate change, for example, but we’re also worried because Joe Manchin is racing down the hall with a shopping cart full of coal yelling, “I’m Santa Claus today, baby!”

● Energy prices have risen, making heating more expensive this winter. This is your landlord’s responsibility, but keep in mind that they have been in a lot of stress since you asked them to fix your ceiling leak three years ago. If your heater is taking some time to turn on, don’t annoy him. Start a controlled grease fire for warmth.

● It’s such a shame we didn’t have to do the free community college, but who needs that? You did? Oh my god I’m so sorry, can you hold out a second? I get a call. Apparently my bird is puking? And I have an appointment to buy sunglasses? Must run!

● In the event that it doesn’t work out, incorporate moderate politics into your everyday life. Say no to extremes. Start biting into the string cheese from the center.

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In March, not long after Joe Biden assumed the presidency, Freedom House, a democracy watchdog group, ranked the state of democracy in the United States far below that of Chile, Costa Rica and Slovakia, citing gerrymandering, the influence of Money in politics and the disenfranchisement of colored people are among the reasons for the poor performance. “A change of president will not do” [these issues] go away, ”Sarah Repucci, vice president of the research and analysis group, told the Guardian at the time. Indeed, in the months since Biden took office, the prospects for an improvement in American democracy have darkened considerably. Nineteen states have thirty-three laws that make it difficult for citizens to vote; a number of states have replaced bipartisan electoral administrators with partisan ideologues; and Republican lawmakers in states that have begun to turn to Democrats like North Carolina and Texas have rebuilt voting cards to favor Republicans and effectively disenfranchise color communities. In view of the conservative composition of the federal courts, legal challenges to the new cards are likely to be unsuccessful.

Against this gloomy background, the Biden administration is holding a virtual summit for democracy with invited people from more than a hundred countries at the beginning of December. When Biden announced the summit in August, the goal seemed to be to restore America’s prestige in the world by advocating human rights and democratic practices in the wake of the Trump administration’s declining foreign policy. “Democracy is no accident,” said Biden in February. “We have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it.” Shortly thereafter, House Democrats passed HR 1, the For the People Act, a comprehensive set of electoral reforms designed to strengthen democracy by extending the right to vote, changing campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics , partisan gerrymandering, increasing electoral security and strengthening the ethical requirements of federal officials. This was essentially a clone of an earlier bill, also known as HR 1, that was brought up in the House of Representatives in 2019 when the Democrats took over a majority. Like this bill, the revived HR 1 was blocked in the Senate by Republicans, who voted not to bring it up for debate. The same fate befell the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a potential legislative corrective to the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in the Shelby County v. Holder case, which gutted the 1965 Suffrage Act and opened the door to the many voter suppression laws that are since passed.

In September, some Democratic senators, led by a group that includes Amy Klobuchar and Joe Manchin, tabled a new election-related bill, the Freedom to Vote Act. It includes a number of new provisions to protect election workers, as well as others that were included in the For the People Act, such as: (It does not contain any other provisions that were included in HR 1 – such as certain aspects of a comprehensive reform of campaign finance and the ability of voters who do not have official identification to cast a regular instead of a provisional election – that were objected to by some excessive political influence is itself a failure of American democracy.) But after the Freedom to Vote Act was proposed, minority leader Mitch McConnell flatly rejected it, saying he hoped no Republican would support it. In October he got his wish. As long as the filibuster stands, that will likely be the fate of all election-related laws proposed by the Democrats. Senators Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Democrats who are now the darling of Republican financiers, the Times reported, have indicated that they will oppose any change to the filibuster rule, signaling that they are more loyal to a Senate rule than towards democracy. (In contrast, Senator Angus King, the Maine Independent who constituted with the Democrats and had previously rejected calls for filibuster reform, appeared to change his mind after the freedom of choice law failed to move forward come that democracy itself is more important than any Senate rule, “he said.)

Democracy may be our civil religion, but it has always traded heavily on myths. A government that began as a benefice to wealthy white men required numerous constitutional amendments and acts of Congress, hard-won over the centuries to bring the country closer to the Lincoln government by, for, and for the people. But as the franchise has become more inclusive, many Republican strategists believe that this process will be their party’s doom. The 2020 elections proved them right: voters were in large numbers, returning a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress to Washington. No one – Biden and members of his administration in particular – should have been surprised when Republicans stepped up their efforts to redraw voting cards and make it harder to vote for those they think will vote Democrats.

There is something deeply desirable about hosting a summit to strengthen democracy around the world when our own has stalled at best. One of the central premises of American exceptionalism is the belief that our democracy will endure despite all odds, that it “will not die of the earth”. The paradox at the core of all democracies, however, is that they can be eliminated by law. The anti-democratic movement, banded around Trump’s insistence on being the rightful winner last November, continues with the blessing of a few Republican Congressmen to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process. It is an accomplice to all legislative efforts by Republican legislatures to undermine future elections.

A recent NPR poll found that only 33 percent of Republicans think the 2024 elections will be fair. This sentiment will not lead to the creation of guidelines and rules to ensure fairness, such as: B. the registration of voters on the same day, the restoration of voting rights after a crime or the requirement of hand-signed ballot papers and statistically determined, risk-limiting tests. Rather, it will lead to worse electoral challenges like the one in Arizona. There may also be more electoral network violations, such as those that occurred in Ohio and Colorado last spring. In these cases, vigilante groups looking for “fraud” were given access to secure state electoral systems, possibly with the help of local officials. The downloaded information was then disseminated at the “Cyber ​​Symposium” organized last August by Mike Lindell, the campaigner for electoral conspiracies. The FBI is now investigating.

This month, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a think tank based in Stockholm, added the United States to its list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time. The U.S. got this designation, according to a report released by the group, in part because of Trump’s insistence that the 2020 elections were fraudulent. “The visible deterioration in democracy in the United States, reflected in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, in efforts to stifle participation (in elections) and in polarization that has gotten out of hand. . . is one of the most worrying developments, “said the group’s general secretary, Kevin Casas-Zamora. He also noted that “the violent challenge to the 2020 elections with no evidence of fraud has been repeated in different ways in places as diverse as Myanmar, Peru and Israel”.

Of course, this is not the kind of sharing the architects von Biden’s Summit for Democracy envisioned. An announcement on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website said they “aim to show how democracies can solve the problems that matter most to the people: strengthening good governance, expanding economic opportunities, protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms and Enabling a decent life “. It continues: “The US government will make commitments in areas such as strengthening free and independent media; Fight against corruption; Defense of free and fair elections; Strengthening civic capacity; Promoting civic and political leadership among women, girls and marginalized community members; and the use of technology for democratic renewal. The United States will hold itself accountable for these commitments on a global public stage as well. “

If the government is serious, the president and his supporters in Congress must now defend democratic norms sufficiently to counter the anti-democratic machinations of Republicans. Otherwise, in a year from now, this phase will be dark.

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