Jeffrey C. Isaac

If the Democrats are not able to pass both a substantial Democratic "infrastructure" bill and a very substantial voting rights bill, it is quite likely that the entire country will soon be Texas.

While the scales might be heavily "weighted in favor of disaster," there are reasons for a certain hopefulness.

Will the entire process at least motivate and mobilize Democrats in and out of Congress to move forward from this trial to do the real political work of passing legislation, rebuilding the party from below, and building support for 2022 and 2024?

These state legislators are doing something brave and necessary on behalf of all people in the United States. They are exiting, for now, so that their counterparts in Washington can regain their backbones.

Resistance to these Republican assaults can and should take a number of forms.

It is highly unlikely that the kind of measures that are necessary to safeguard democracy from its imminent threats can be signed into law this year or the next given the current balance of forces.

It is hard to see how our current injustices can be repaired without working through and then "democratizing" these liberal democratic institutions.

Any approach to moving forward must reckon with the fact that one of this country's two major parties is no longer committed to multiracial democracy.