We witnessed an act of terror on Wednesday: insurrectionists, bearing symbols of historical racist violence, attempting to nullify a seven-million vote victory by sieging the United States Capitol during a constitutional ritual. 

All this just one day after Georgians elected their first Black senator, and “the first time in American history that a Black senator was popularly elected by a majority-Black coalition,” as Charles M. Blow notes in the New York Times.

The insurrection of January 6 was nothing less than an attack on multiracial democracy.

And it’s a searing reminder of the threat white supremacy poses to the nation’s future if we don’t strengthen our institutions and give voice to the people terrorists tried to silence this week.

In the coming years, the gap between necessary and possible must close. 

• We can and must abolish the Electoral College and the filibuster. 

• We can and must grant statehood to Washington, DC, and fully enfranchise the Black and brown majority that lives there. 

• And we can and must fix an unrepresentative Senate that stifles progress and dilutes the votes of millions.

Democracy—true, multiracial democracy—can and must triumph. And through structural, equitable reform of our institutions, it will.

What We’re Reading

The Marketplace Is Demanding Ethical AI - Barron’s

$900 Billion Won’t Carry Biden Very Far [feat. Roosevelt’s Joseph Stiglitz ] - New York Times

For an Equitable Economy in 2021, We Must Center Black Women. Here Are Four Ways How. - Ms. 

Life beyond Markets, with Mike Konczal - Dissent