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The New Abnormal

Will Biden Ever Get Off His Ass to Save Democracy?

The New Abnormal

The Daily Beast

News & Politics

4.67.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s “the most serious threat to the core underlying principles of American democracy since at least the Civil War.” And Joe Biden is barely doing a thing to stop it. “We are seeing a threat to the integrity of the 2022 and 2024 elections—and the ability of Americans to cast a vote—that is unfolding across multiple dimensions,” The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Amid all of this, you've heard very, very little from Biden presenting this as a threat to democracy.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to another special bonus edition of the new abnormal and we thank you so much for being here today

0:06.5

We have a really really special guest with Ronald Brownstein if you don't know him

0:10.2

He's a two-time Pulitzer finalist a senior editor at the Atlantic a CNN political analyst an author of the New York Times bestseller

0:17.4

Rock me on the water and today he's gonna talk to us about why the Biden administration should be taking the threats to democracy more seriously

0:24.2

Welcome back to the new abnormal Ron Brownstein

0:27.6

Molly. Thank you for having me. Good morning and the fact that you're worried makes me really fucking worried so worried

0:34.2

Why worried? I think lots of people are worried. I mean we read the occasional

0:38.0

essay of concern I went out and talked to

0:42.0

Really the heads of a lot of the civil rights and voting rights groups that are working on these issues

0:46.8

And they are worried on two fronts

0:48.7

I mean they're worried about the magnitude of what's unfolding in the red states and they are worried about the way that the Biden White House

0:55.1

And the Senate Democratic leadership are responding to it and there is a concern that there is a gap that is widening between the magnitude of the threat and

1:04.1

The intensity of the response. Can you explain a little bit more specifically what that means?

1:10.2

I think there is a widespread sense among people who work in this space whether it is people who study democracy

1:17.4

Whether people who do civil rights people who work on voting rights people who work on political reform

1:22.3

For example someone like Fred Werthheimer who is the former head of common cause hasn't has been doing this for 50 years

1:28.6

50 50 years that what we are experiencing since the election is the most serious threat

1:35.6

To the core underlying principles of American democracy since at least the civil war if not ever

1:41.9

You know that we are seeing a threat to the integrity of the 2022 and 2024 elections and the ability of Americans the cast of vote

1:50.8

That is unfolding across multiple dimensions. I mean the most obvious has been the legislation passed in states like Georgia and

1:58.4

Iowa and Florida and soon coming in Texas

2:02.6

Restricting the right to vote in various ways rolling back access to the ballot

...

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