It has been too easy to overlook the slow drip of new information about former President Donald Trump’s attempt to remain in office after being voted out, but make no mistake: This was an attempted coup. And it was thwarted, in part, by state laws that prevented politicians from overruling the voters.
The latest revelations about Trump’s anti-democracy campaign make it all the more urgent to prevent Republican-controlled legislatures from rolling back those safeguards. The For the People Act, the federal voting rights law pending in Congress, would do that, if only President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats could get their act together.
The steps Trump has taken publicly to subvert democracy since last year were bad enough. Trump refused to accept his clear electoral defeat on Nov. 3, outrageously claiming victory before the votes were counted, flinging around false fraud allegations and generally doing all he could to undermine public faith in the electoral process.
