By E.J. Dionne
***The fact that Republicans oppose federal voting guarantees is no reason to give them veto power over bills aimed at repairing abuses their fellow partisans are enacting at the state level. Imagine if Republicans in the Reconstruction Era had said: “Oh, gee whiz, Democrats won’t support the 14th and 15th Amendments, so let’s give up on equal rights in the name of bipartisanship.”
Civil War- and Reconstruction-era metaphors are, alas, entirely on point when it comes to Jan. 6. It’s no accident that some of the criminals who invaded the Capitol waved Confederate flags. Now, as then, we are witnessing violent efforts to undercut advances in democracy and reactionary schemes in many states to impede access to the ballot. The struggle again divides our political parties, though their roles have reversed.
Accountability for the events of Jan. 6 must be legal but also political. At issue is whether we are the democratic republic we claim to be. A Congress that refuses to enforce the equal rights that the insurrectionists rose up to reject would be capitulating to some of the worst impulses in our nation’s history.
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