Analysis: Biden Faces Democracy Challenges in the US and Abroad

Biden lashes out at Trump a year after the assault on Capitol 3:30

(CNN) -

US President Joe Biden's new pledge to save democracy faces an immediate test at home and abroad this week, with a far-reaching push for the right to vote and diplomacy. Most critical of Russia since the Cold War.

With his spirited speech last week, on the anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, Biden appeared to engineer a political pivot, putting his credibility on the line to pass new laws that reverse Republican voter suppression bills and restore the right to vote of minorities. This Tuesday he will travel to Atlanta, a city synonymous with the civil rights movement, to try to dislodge the "dagger" that, he suggested, former President Donald Trump and his Republican Party have "at the throat of our democracy."

But to be successful, Biden must find a way to overcome the hurdle that so far also derailed his climate and social spending agenda: opposition to changing the rules of filibustering in the Senate among moderate Democrats, including Senators Joe Manchin and Senators. Kyrsten Sinema.

• ANALYSIS |

  The West has a rare chance to put Putin in his place

The Biden administration is also engaged in important work abroad, with a flurry of talks with Russia amid warnings from the United States that President Vladimir Putin may be prepared to invade a young democracy: Ukraine. The Kremlin is using its former satellite state as a pawn in a tactic aimed at ousting NATO from the Eastern European democracies that were once within its orbit during the Cold War.

Efforts by the United States to convince Russia to withdraw will have huge implications for the geopolitical situation in Europe.

And Biden's struggle for influence with Putin is all the more ironic since the Russian leader doesn't just threaten democracy on the other side of the Atlantic.

The US intelligence services accuse him of interfering in the US elections to help Trump, the former president who ended up trying to deny the will of the voters in 2020 with an attempted coup and who often genuflected before the leader. Russian.

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Biden invited to give State of the Union address 0:52

The talks in Europe, and Biden's ability to unravel the voting rights puzzle in Washington, will be an indicator of his presidential influence as he tries to bounce back from a political slump.

The stakes in the Voting Rights Initiative are huge as it tests Democrats' ability to protect franchise access, especially for minority voters, which is under threat from legislatures. led by the Republican Party inspired by Trump's lies.

And the administration's push on two fronts will go a long way in deciding the outcome in the United States and internationally of a presidency that Biden dedicated to safeguarding global democracy that he says is under deadly threat.

A total boost to the right to vote

The right to vote often seemed less of a priority than other items on Biden's agenda in a first year in power dominated by the pandemic and ambitious spending proposals, including the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed and the stalled bill. of the social safety net.

But both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Atlanta to rally support for the Voting Freedom Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

The first bill would make Election Day a public holiday, require registration on the same day, and allow all voters to request to vote by mail, among other provisions.

It would also reverse the partisan takeover of the electoral administration contained in some recent GOP laws in the states.

This latest bill would restore federal government oversight of state voting laws, destroyed by the Supreme Court in a 2013 decision.

• ANALYSIS |

  The crusade against the Woke movement reached Europe.

  Its effects could be chilling

With Republicans universally opposed to the Freedom of Vote Act and with only one of its senators, Lisa Murkowski, backing the measure named after the late civil rights hero and Democratic Rep. John Lewis, Democrats must get around the Republican filibuster use requiring a supermajority of 60 votes to pass most important laws. But Manchin of West Virginia and Sinema of Arizona were reluctant to relax the rules of filibuster.

Many Democrats are begging them to give in, arguing that a cascade of voter suppression laws passed by Republican-ruled states pose an existential threat to free and fair elections that can only be reversed by federal action on what can be the final months of Democratic power before the midterm elections in November.

Senate Majority Leader New York Democrat Chuck Schumer promised to hold a vote before Martin Luther King Jr.Day Supporters of the legislation are pushing to limit filibustering for a voting rights review and are trying of getting Manchin on the bandwagon, especially since he wrote the Freedom to Vote Act himself, after Republicans opposed an earlier bill that contained broader reforms.

"He drew it up and they still refuse to support it, so he has all the coverage he needs to walk away and do what we need to do, and that's providing the 49th vote and I hope the 50th vote comes," the chief said on Saturday. House Majority James Clyburn on CNN's "Newsroom."

Speaking to Fox's Bret Baier, the Democrat from South Carolina increased the pressure on Manchin.

He said he agreed with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts that filibustering in the Senate had "deep roots in racism" and that a minority veto should not be allowed to be cemented.

Manchin last week dealt a blow to the hopes of vote reform advocates like Clyburn, a key figure in rescuing Biden's then-languishing presidential campaign in early 2020 and a top ambassador for black voters.

Analysis denies Trump's theory of alleged fraud 1:39

"I've always been in favor of the rules being done the way we always have, with two-thirds of the members voting," Manchin told CNN's Jake Tapper. He warned that eliminating filibustering would hurt Democrats if Republicans regain control of the Senate. “The reason I say it is intense is that once you change a rule or try to make a place for yourself - and I've always said this - every time you try to find your place, you end up charging everything. There is nothing left because it comes and goes ”.

But the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, exerted more pressure on the recalcitrant senators of her party this Sunday, describing the voting laws of the republican states, which in many cases make it difficult to cast votes and facilitate the interference of the politicians in elections, as a "very important threat to our democracy."

"They are not only suppressing the vote ... they are annulling the elections," the California Democrat said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accuse Democrats of threatening the right of states to run their own elections.

However, many of the new state laws are justified by the argument of "electoral integrity", a keyword that has its origin in Trump's lies about electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential elections, which have been denied on multiple occasions. .

Russia and China believe that "democracy has its days numbered"

On Thursday, during his January 6 anniversary address in the Capitol Statues Hall, Biden warned that foreign enemies were watching to see if the United States safeguarded its own democracy under threat unprecedented in modern times.

"From China to Russia and beyond, they are betting that democracy has its days numbered," Biden said.

"They are betting that America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman."

Two of the most dangerous challenges in US foreign policy involve two democracies - Taiwan and Ukraine - pinning their hopes of survival on the support of Washington, as they exist under threat from far more powerful and proprietary autocracies. China and Russia.

Biden personally warned Putin at several virtual summits of devastating sanctions if he orders the entry of tens of thousands of Russian military personnel into Ukraine to follow up on the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. US officials will deliver the same message this week at the talks. which began on Sunday with a working dinner between Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Geneva.

Talks resumed on Monday.

Two days later, the NATO-Russia Council will meet in Brussels.

The Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes Russia and the United States, meets on Thursday.

But there is little hope of progress.

The United States argues that Russia is demanding concessions that would permanently weaken NATO in Europe with its requests for the withdrawal of troops and weapons from the former Warsaw Pact nations.

Moscow also wants guarantees that Ukraine - a former Soviet republic - will never be allowed to join the alliance.

• US and Russia hold crucial talks on Ukraine border crisis

"It's hard to see real progress, rather than talk, in an atmosphere of escalating with a gun to Ukraine's head," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Tapper on "State of the Union. ", on Sunday.

Ryabkov was equally disheartened, saying he was "disappointed" by the signals from Washington and Brussels. "In short, they reflect a lack of understanding of what we need," he said before laying out a wish list that the West will never accept. "We need legal guarantees, legal guarantees that NATO will not expand further, eliminate everything that the alliance has created, driven by anti-Russian phobias and all kinds of misconceptions about what is the essence of Russian politics for the period since 1997 ".

His warning had a chilling resonance from the late-20th-century clashes between two ideologically opposing superpowers.

Although now talking about a second Cold War usually refers to the construction of an American confrontation with China and not with Russia, there is a big difference between the period between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Back then, the challenge to American democracy came mostly from abroad.

Now, she is besieged at home.

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