WASHINGTON – While attending a virtual convention this week, Democrats are not just pursuing more progressive policies than they have in generations: Party leaders are also warning about changing the rules of a system that many of their voters consider undemocratic.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called for the abolition of the rule that effectively requires 60 votes to pass legislation. Top Democratic senators say they want to abolish the Electoral College and elect presidents by popular vote. The House of Representatives voted in June to grant stability to Washington, DC And Democrats see language in the platform calling for “structural” change in the Supreme Court.
“There’s a youth revolution in the party,” Howard Dean, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, told NBC News. “You will see a real reform movement – not only in Congress, which will oppose for institutional reasons, but you will see it in the country. And that’s what you’ll see at this convention. ”
Presumptive nominee Joe Biden has opposed some of the changes, as he focuses on a broadly acceptable election alternative for President Donald Trump. But the composition that speaks includes sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., A leader of the left; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., A staunch proponent of a systematic reinstatement; a rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., an emerging progressive star.
The cause is a growing base of younger, female, and non-white Americans, a paradigm shift represented in sen’s vice presidential election. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
Some of these voters are willing to turn the table over a system they say is stacked against them. They worry that the filibuster will hinder progressive legislation, even if Democrats win in a landing; they are angry that Trump is winning the presidency, despite losing the nationwide popular vote by 3 million votes; and they have lost confidence in a Supreme Court, they say it is tainted by a stolen seat.
“We’ve seen Republicans abuse the filibuster in the past. My personal belief is that they killed it, and we will finish the job for them, ”said Dean. ‘They have destroyed the Supreme Court in the eyes of many of the people in the country. They made this bed, and now they’ll lie in it. ”
In his eulogy for civil rights icon John Lewis, President Barack Obama endorsed a string of new rules, such as supporting the Voting Rights Act, auto-registering Americans to vote, making Election Day a holiday and giving equal rights representation for DC and Puerto Rico.
“And if all this is necessary to eliminate the filibuster, another relic of Jim Crow, to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that is what we must do,” he said.
Team Trump points to ‘socialism and chaos’
Trump’s campaign claims the new push is a sign of crippling radicalism.
“Democrats are trying to abandon our basic principles of freedom and democracy for socialism and chaos,” Trump spokeswoman Courtney Parella said. “Joe Biden and radical Kamala Harris put themselves first and blame the American people, and their candidacy is a threat to the foundation of our nation.”
Andrew Bates, spokesman for the Biden campaign, said he and Harris were “running on a fat platform to overcome the crisis that has forced Donald Trump’s unfortunate failed leadership on our country and build it better. “
The lineup of speakers, who will deliver remote remarks, includes an array of moderate Democrats, such as Republican John Kasich, a former Ohio governor who is critical of Trump.
Nevertheless, Obama’s remarks in the run – up to the convention were a seminal moment for the party – a popular ex-president with a respect for US institutions who called for changes he opposed when he was in office. amt wie.
“The system is broken in principle. The people have known that for a long time, and elected officials are finally starting to get it, ‘said Rebecca Katz, a progressive consultant and former assistant to Reid. ‘See what’s going on around us. The government has failed at all levels. Why accept the status quo? ”
“The other side has no shame, and we are not on an equal playing field,” she said. “It’s about the unique power of the senate to squash everything when a handful of red state senators have far more power than members from New York or Los Angeles.”
Harris, who is poised to accept the vice presidential nomination on Wednesday, would break glass ceilings as the first woman and the first Black and first Indian American vice president.
In an interview aired Friday on MSNBC, Harris threw the ticket in aspirational terms, promising that the Biden-Harris administration will “focus on the future of the country, motivated by what can be, unintentionally by what has been. “
“This is a statement about the fact that we will not just wait for someone to give us permission,” Harris said. “Sometimes we have to get out of our comfort zone to move forward.”
