精东影业

We鈥檙e now just over a month into a new administration, and Washington political life has somewhat reverted to normal.

But 鈥渘ormal鈥� in 2021 isn鈥檛 the 鈥渘ormal鈥� of 2016鈥擩oe Biden is now leading a changed country, and navigating a political landscape vastly different from the one he helped lead as vice president. President Biden鈥檚 work so far has been mostly centered on patching the holes in the walls left by his predecessor, putting competent people into place, and generally un-Trumping the executive branch. As in the case of many new administrations, the real work is yet to truly begin.

The stain of the previous administration will take a lot longer to fade. In many ways, a long-lived thread of paranoid nativism in the modern conservative movement can be traced from the of the 1950s and 鈥�60s, through of pandering to White supremacists, living high off the public purse, to , the , , , and Donald Trump. The bigotry embedded in American conservatism preceded Trump, and it didn鈥檛 go away just because Trump was voted out of office.

Trump鈥檚 base is still the dominant force in conservative politics. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll found that if Trump founded a rival conservative party. Only 27% of respondents said they鈥檇 stay in the Republican Party in that circumstance.

But that schism would only happen if Trump lost control of the Republican Party, and right now, all the signs instead are pointing in the opposite direction: lawmakers who voted to impeach or to convict are being . The questioning that Biden鈥檚 Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland faced from Republicans showed that many aren鈥檛 backing down from pursuing Trump-favorable issues, . The Sunday morning talk shows are full of Republican talking heads who a clean and fair election by large margins.

Trump may be out of office, but his Big Lie of voter fraud persists. The annual Conservative Political Action Conference鈥斺�攆eatured more doubling and tripling down on the falsehoods of a stolen election, with the , saying, 鈥淚 may even decide to beat them for a third time.鈥� 

The fact that the nation is now moving forward on economic relief, a COVID vaccination plan, and a restoration of the rule of law (of sorts), is only because the Democrats control the Senate. If they鈥檇 failed to win one of the two Georgia seats, U.S. Sen. .

Instead, the battle lines between democracy and autocracy have shifted. They鈥檙e now much closer to home.

In statehouses across the nation, the war on democracy is still under way. Not only did the Democrats (a tall order, considering how severely Republicans have gerrymandered their districts to maintain power), but state-level Republicans are accelerating their agenda of voter suppression.

The lesson they took away from losing the White House and Congress, apparently, is that they didn鈥檛 suppress the vote hard enough.

Witness the state legislatures: The Brennan Center for Justice has, as of Feb. 19, identified more than .

Even more bills introduced in legislatures would advance voting rights, the Brennan Center notes, but many of those are likely the work of minority Democrats, and have little chance of passage. (31 if you count Nebraska, which is officially nonpartisan, but mirrors much of the Midwest with mostly conservative government representation).

But state-level Republicans have not been chided by the 2020 general election loss, or even by the led by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to produce evidence of any voter fraud. Instead, they鈥檙e charging forward to restrict voting, especially for Black Americans.

The Republicans have realized that their biggest problem is that voters don鈥檛 like them or their policies. Rather than adapt, their solution appears to be to get rid of the voters. (A Republican National Committee-convened came to the same conclusion, saying the party needed to revamp its outreach to women and non-White voters. Then, as now, the party ignored the advice, and instead returned to voter suppression as their key to victory.)

In Georgia, whose Senate races gave control of Congress to the Democrats this past year, that would , , , when Black churches have helped organize 鈥淪ouls to the Polls鈥� events, and even criminalize distributing food and water to voters waiting in line. That鈥檚 an issue in a state where for the chance to cast a vote鈥攁 problem caused by the state .

Alice O鈥橪enick, a Republican representative on the Gwinnett County Board of Registrations and Elections, essentially admitted to the Gwinnett Daily Post that : 鈥淚 will not let them end this session without changing some of these laws. 鈥� They don鈥檛 have to change all of them, but they鈥檝e got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning.鈥�

She also called for eliminating ballot drop boxes and pushing to 鈥渦pdate鈥� county voter rolls by removing people who may have moved out of state, or who are not 鈥渓egal,鈥� parroting Trump鈥檚 lie that he lost only because of people casting illegal votes.

Or as a GOP lawyer stated March 2, when Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked him why the Arizona Republican National Committee would favor a law that disqualifies ballots that are cast outside a voter鈥檚 precinct: 鈥�.鈥�

Similar dynamics are unfolding in many states, not just battleground states like and , but in otherwise 鈥渟afe鈥� Democratic states like New York (where Republicans want or or Republican states like Montana, where Republicans are seeking to end same-day voter registration.

Against this onslaught of suppression bills, the most powerful tool we have is federal legislation. And bills have been filed to enact such protections, including  which would work toward reducing corruption in elections, and (a Senate version is named after late Congressman John Lewis), which would restore many of the protections of its original namesake law that . H.R. 1 was passed by the House of Representatives on March 3.

Both bills, however, have little chance of survival in the Senate because of the filibuster that requires a 60-vote supermajority to advance legislation. A simple Senate majority could rewrite the rules to eliminate the filibuster, but Democrats Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have refused to support that rule change.

There may be obscure workarounds in the Senate (if the Democrats start being as ruthless as the Republicans), or perhaps continued pressure on the holdouts will bear fruit. But the best hope for strong democratic reforms may rest on the outcome of the 2022 election. Given the Democrats鈥� razor-thin majority, the past trend of administrations losing seats in midterm elections, and the new rush to enact more voter suppression in many states, that鈥檚 not a good outcome for democracy.

Until then, it seems that only continued pressure on congressional Democrats, plus state-level grassroots organizing, as we saw in Georgia, is going to preserve our right to vote. Those who were hoping for a reprieve after voting Trump out of power are beginning to see that the fight isn鈥檛 over, nor is it going to allow us to relax into 鈥渘ormalcy.鈥�

CORRECTION: This article was amended at 8:25 a.m., March 10, 2021, to correct the description of voting restrictions proposed by New York Republicans and provide accurate links to the bills. The previous version referred and linked to bills in another state. Read our corrections policy here.