The Fate and Future of American Democracy Hangs On the Minimum Wage
If Biden & Harris don’t act now, the window will close
It looks like President Joe Biden is going to cave on the $15 an hour minimum wage. And it looks like Chuck Schumer is going to cave on ending the filibuster.
While these are disappointing failures to progressives because of the harm they’ll do to working people, they’re also extraordinarily dangerous to the future of American democracy.
These failures will add to the skepticism of the American people that government, as we have it today, can never work on their behalf, and thus increase their willingness to accept replacing democracy with a Trump-style strongman oligarchy.
The simple fact is that the Republican Party no longer believes in democracy. They haven’t for some time, which is why they’ve spent the last 20 years working so hard to make it more difficult for Americans to vote. It’s why they’re willing to promote monstrous Big Lies to achieve their political goals. It’s why they refuse to use the correct name of the Democratic Party (the oldest political party in the world) and instead will only call it “the Democrat Party” (something that doesn’t even exist).
