Amid tragedy, racial issues take precedence

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When we talk about government of the people, by the people, and for the people, whom are we talking about? Who are the people? There's a tendency in modern politics, across the spectrum, to define one's own supporters as the "true" American people, who are going to "take back" America. It may be a politically effective ploy, but ultimately, it's not beneficial. That language pits Americans against each other and the hostility is rising in numerous ways—increased extremism, acts of violence, and a growing anti-democracy movement among our own lawmakers. There were further reminders of these troubling trends this week. The truth is, the people is all of us. But until we the people fully accept that fact, we will continue to be vulnerable to opportunists who exploit our differences in pursuit of power. —Evan McMullin

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** Valasik & Reid: The far-right threat
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"Right-wing pundits and conservative media are continuing to stoke fears about the Biden Administration. We and other observers of right-wing groups expect that extremists will come to see the events of Jan. 6 as just the opening skirmish in a modern civil war. We anticipate they will continue to seek an end to American democracy and the beginning of a new society free—or even purged—of groups the [far right] fears, including immigrants, Jewish people, non-whites, LGBTQ people, and those who value multiculturalism." —Matthew Valasik & Shannon Reid on The Conversation ([link removed])

Matthew Valasik is an associate professor of sociology at Louisiana State University. Shannon Reid is an associate professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

MORE: DNI: Domestic violent extremism poses 'elevated threat' in 2021 —U.S. News & World Report ([link removed])


** The Economist: Border becoming moral and political nightmare
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"The border troubles pose a threat to Biden's own agenda. He wants to shepherd through comprehensive immigration reform, offering illegal immigrants already in the U.S. a path to legal status, and supports giving 'Dreamers,' who were brought to America as young children, permanent legal status. But those prospects dim as the surge of migrants grows." —The Economist ([link removed])

MORE: House passes pair of immigration bills amid influx of migrants crossing U.S.-Mexico border —CNN ([link removed])


** Biden, Modi, Morrison & Suga: Committed to a free, open Indo-Pacific region
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"We are striving to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is accessible and dynamic, governed by international law and bedrock principles such as freedom of navigation and peaceful resolution of disputes, and that all countries are able to make their own political choices, free from coercion. In recent years, that vision has increasingly been tested. Those trials have only strengthened our resolve to reckon with the most urgent of global challenges together." —Joe Biden, Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison & Yoshihide Suga in ([link removed]) The Washington Post ([link removed])

Joe Biden is President of the United States. Narendra Modi is Prime Minister of India. Scott Morrison is Prime Minister of Australia. Yoshihide Suga is Prime Minister of Japan.

MORE: U.S. and China trade barbs after Blinken warns of need to respect global order or face a 'more violent world' —CNN ([link removed])


** Li & Lau: The emerging fight over gerrymandering
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"Gerrymandering is one of the hot-button issues of our time. If you look at polling, ending gerrymandering is one of the few things that gets majority support from Democrats, Republicans, and independents. It's something that people feel strongly about. People understand instinctively that the political process is broken, and they understand that rigged maps are in part to blame." —Michael Li & Tim Lau at the ([link removed]) Brennan Center for Justice ([link removed])

Michael Li serves as senior counsel for the Brennan Center's Democracy Program, where his work focuses on redistricting, voting rights, and elections. Tim Lau is a staff writer/editor with the Brennan Center's editorial team.

MORE: Biden's call for filibuster change gives HR 1 advocates modest reason for hope —The Fulcrum ([link removed])
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** Atkins: How Facebook is killing journalism and democracy
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"[T]he debate over whether to treat social media companies as platforms or publishers continues to rage. There are good arguments on both sides, but as long as they are able to take the advantages of both while accepting the responsibilities of neither, it's clear that we will get as users and consumers neither the platforms nor the content we need. ... The end result of doing nothing will be a world full of authoritarian despots using hateful disinformation to maintain power while driving legitimate journalism into extinction." —David Atkins in ([link removed]) Washington Monthly ([link removed])

David Atkins is president of The Pollux Group, a qualitative research firm.

MORE: Don Gale: There is no democracy without journalism —The Salt Lake Tribune ([link removed])


** Waldman: The GOP's best chance? Cut ties with Trump
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"They can begin to have some actual policy debates to determine what their agenda ought to be for the future and whether they have anything more to offer voters than tax cuts for the wealthy. They might be able to back up a 'populism' based mostly on whining about mean tech companies and Mr. Potato Head with some actual ideas that could be appealing to a wider population of voters. They might even find some standard-bearers who build their reputations by inspiring people rather than stoking the most rancid grievances." —Paul Waldman in ([link removed]) The Washington Post ([link removed])

Paul Waldman is a political columnist at The Washington Post.

MORE: Trump gets tied to two forces targeting America: Russia, domestic extremism —The Washington Post ([link removed])


** Stephens: We need a liberal party
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"[T]he neglected territory of American politics is no longer at the illiberal fringes. It's at the liberal center. It's the place most Americans still are, temperamentally and morally, and might yet return to if given the choice. By 'liberal,' I don't mean big-state welfarism. I mean the tenets and spirit of liberal democracy. Respect for the outcome of elections, the rule of law, freedom of speech, and the principle (in courts of law and public opinion alike) of innocent until proven guilty." —Bret Stephens in ([link removed]) The New York Times ([link removed])

Bret Stephens is a columnist at
The New York Times.

MORE: Jennifer Rubin: Here's the best use of Never Trumpers' energies —The Washington Post ([link removed])
The ODNI report on foreign threats to the 2020 elections shows a serious, ongoing threat to U.S. national security that we really aren't talking about: the American proxies and dupes doing the Kremlin's dirty work against America.

Moscow is increasingly relying on proxies and dupes to do its heavy lifting—and finding far too many of both in the United States. This network of actors is highly integrated and self-amplifying, and has significant reach into key audiences in the United States.

The clarity of the report—which avoids naming U.S. persons, but we know who—should make us question why there has been so little cost to elected Republicans, Trump appointees, Republican operatives, and media personalities who are identified as working with or as proxies of Russian intelligence.

We must consider what to do about the Kremlin shills and ghouls—particularly those with security clearances who maintain elected office and committee assignments where they can influence lawmaking and tie up the legislative process. There is now a series of politicians who have built their domestic influence around their foreign collaborations. And this is deeply troubling.

The same is true of those in the public domain—media outlets and personalities running Kremlin narrative, political operatives/strategists who connect all the pieces and field the campaign, the people meeting directly with Russian operatives like it was all no big deal. We have seen the cost.

We need a whole-of-society resilience-building effort to limit the ability of foreign influence campaigns to pull us awry. This must be a top priority for the new administration. —Molly McKew, writer and lecturer on Russian influence and information warfare (@MollyMcKew)

The current version of the Republican Party needs enemies to focus its base on in order to draw attention away from what it really stands for now. The actions of GOP state party officials clearly demonstrate their belief that voter fraud occurred during the 2020 election, but what they call voter fraud, most Americans call democracy. There is little doubt that Trump and his allies meant that African Americans voting in itself was an example of voter fraud in Philadelphia and other areas where there exist large numbers of minority citizens.

A common target of their wrath is an entity known as Antifa. There is some truth in their claims, that some persons who aligned themselves with what is more of a movement than an organization, have engaged in vandalism and assaults on police officers. Those actions of course are crimes. What they don't want most Americans to realize, however, is that they are trying to impose Jim Crow-style discrimination on people of color.

Antifa, they say, is the enemy of patriots. If they are referring to the "patriots" who stormed the Capitol with the intention of overturning the 2020 election, and installing the loser as, effectively, an unelected dictator, then to those self-described patriots, Antifa is an enemy. Those "patriots" also demonstrated that vandalism and assaulting police officers is not exclusive to Antifa. The Antifa movement, however, does have deep roots in history. After all, couldn't members of the French Resistance against Nazi Germany in the 1940s be referred to as being an anti-fascist movement? If Antifa is the enemy of the current GOP, then who are its allies? —Bill M., Pennsylvania
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