Right now, Washington, D.C., is a garrison town.

Miles of fencing surround and prohibit people from entering the national Mall. You have to pass through checkpoints to move through downtown. National Guard troops holding large guns are standing guard at corners throughout the city. Humvees and military trucks block the roads. The Capitol is surrounded by layers of fencing, hundreds of heavily armed National Guard, military trucks, and surveillance structures.

All of this is almost surely an overreaction to the January 6 insurrection, though an understandable one in light of the catastrophic failures that allowed the seditionist violence that day.

Walking through the city, it is impossible not to feel a real sadness.

Due to COVID-19 and street closings, the city is eerily quiet and empty — except for the overwhelming military presence. Stores are boarded up. An open, vibrant city is on lockdown. The common spaces that are the symbolic center of our democracy are militarized and closed off.

This is reality and metaphor — for our democracy is under siege:

• Although the demagogic Trump will be leaving office tomorrow, his profoundly anti-democratic following, with major fascistic strains, will remain a threat to the country.

• Republicans around the country are intensifying their racist voter suppression efforts.

• Big Money continues to dominate our politics, giving billionaires and Big Business profound influence over who runs for office, what they talk about, who wins, and what policy choices are considered permissible.

Meanwhile, structural features of our political system conspire to constrain and deny democracy:

• Senate Republicans are poised to use the filibuster to block the progressive policies that Americans, of all political stripes, favor and desperately need.

• The people of Washington, D.C. — predominantly Black, majority non-white, and the very same ones living amid a de facto militarized lockdown — are denied representation in Congress.

• Gerrymandered legislative districts tilt the political playing field toward incumbents and, on net, massively favor Republican legislators.

And, our country’s extreme wealth inequality makes the nation’s democratic promise almost impossible to realize:

• That wealth inequality by itself makes political equality nearly unattainable.

• The rich simply have too many opportunities to convert their wealth into political influence.

• Even more profoundly, that wealth divide affords people radically different life chances, mocking the very idea of true democracy.

Yet, for all that, the sun is — literally — shining in Washington, D.C., today. And it will be again tomorrow.

The throwing out of Donald Trump — a democratic victory against the forces of fascism, racism, and oligarchy — gives us a chance at a new beginning.

Under siege though our democracy might be, we have solutions to each of the problems identified here, and to many others.

We CAN win those solutions.

We are poised to win very many of them in the coming months.

So stay tuned for my ongoing updates on ways you can take action to protect and strengthen our democracy.

For democracy,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

P.S. For half a century, Public Citizen has been advancing policies that put the needs of everyday Americans before the greed of billionaires and Big Business. That legacy of progress and that ongoing work could not matter more right now, as our nation transitions to a Joe Biden presidency that will be as progressive as we — you and Public Citizen, together — make it.

Of course, we’re also busy undoing damage the Trump administration has already done and watching out for whatever shenanigans a lame-duck Donald Trump tries to get away with. And — like so many nonprofits and small businesses — we continue to experience financial strain related to the coronavirus pandemic.

If you can, please make an emergency donation today to support the critical work we’re doing together or even join our popular Monthly Giving program. Thank you.
 
 
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