Biden, the Democrats, and voting rights in 2021-2 Is this what surrender looks like?

President Joe Biden gave a speech yesterday evening that he probably hopes will be remembered as one of his most important and effective, Biden speaks on voting rights,

A PBS Newshour report on the speech is here, :PBS post-speech report: Biden calls GOP state voting restrictions ‘un-American’ 07/ 13/2021.

The official text of Biden's speech is here, Remarks by President Biden on Protecting the Sacred, Constitutional Right to Vote.

Here are some of the things that the President of the United States said about the ongoing and fast-moving voter suppression laws the Republicans are passing across the country:

• "[T]he For The People Act [is] a national imperative."
• The GOP is engaged nationwide in "election subversion" embodied in "odious laws."
• "It’s the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history."
• Georgia just passed a "vicious anti-voting law" that is " racially discriminatory."
• "Are you on the side of truth or lies; fact or fiction; justice or injustice; democracy or autocracy? That’s what it’s coming down to."

But do a quick search and see if you can find the word "filibuster" in it.

And that's the problem. Unless the filibuster rule is abolished or adjusted in a way that allows a vote on the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the two laws which Biden is nominally supporting in this speech, they won't pass.

That's why my first reaction to the speech is that it sounds like a de facto surrender in the face of what the President calls "the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history."

But it is full of phrases and clips that can be used in campaign ads and fundraising letters and pitches to sell voting-rights merch.

VP Kamala Harris offered this bland snippet of text on Twitter:

In 2020, more voters cast a ballot than ever before. Now, there are some pushing new laws across the country to make it harder to vote.

We are fighting back against these efforts.

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 13, 2021

I just don't believe this is serious.

The Democrats control the White House and both Houses of Congress. If Biden and Harris and the Congressional Democrats are serious about blocking what Biden calls "election subversion" in that speech, they will pass those two pieces of legislation. Otherwise, we're stuck with the reality that the Democrats control the White House and both Houses of Congress and can't pass their own legislation. Even legislation as critical as this.