OPINION | What Democratic lawmakers in the United States fail to understand

Editor’s note: Frida Ghitis (@fridaghitis), a former CNN correspondent and producer, is a world affairs columnist. She is a CNN contributor, a columnist for The Washington Post, and a columnist for World Politics Review. The opinions expressed in this comment are yours. See more opinions here.

(CNN) – There is a striking disconnect between the political contest between members of the Democratic Party in Washington and the reality of the danger the United States faces. It’s a baffling spectacle that undoubtedly pleases the majority of Republicans – especially Trump supporters – and leaves many Democrats increasingly anxious.

As former President Donald Trump and his supporters continue their dangerous maneuvers to retake power, Democrats in Congress are fighting over the size of President Joe Biden’s campaign promise, a great infrastructure plan, and somehow they fight like it’s 1999.

It is not. We are in 2021, the year after Trump tried to overturn a legitimate election and jeopardize American democracy. We are in 2021, the year in which Trump and his increasingly committed allies advance their strategy to overcome, with an eye on future elections, the obstacles that prevented his coup from succeeding.

This is a moment like no other. But Democrats in Congress appear to be blind to what is at stake.

Rather than working together to ensure that Biden has a successful presidency, something that is crucial not just for the United States but for the rest of the world, they are entrenched in their positions, thus far refusing to compromise on their differences.

Progressive Democrats say they will oppose a bipartisan $ 1 trillion spending bill and instead seek a larger $ 3.5 trillion package passed. They see the largest project as a unique opportunity to introduce transformative change that includes a universal kindergarten program, childcare provisions and expanded Medicare coverage, among other investments. The moderates say the larger spending package is simply too much.

Meanwhile, with Republicans trying to block Democrats at all costs, the country runs the risk of not approving an increase in the debt ceiling, leading to a government default, cwith potentially disastrous economic consequences.

Making this dysfunctional spectacle even worse, the government faces a deadline to fund its operations. If no action is taken, another strange and unnecessary government shutdown could occur within a week, unless Congress passes a new budget. But it’s not just Republicans who stand in the way.

With the minuscule majority of Democrats in Congress, any small group of Democratic lawmakers can derail the legislation, as Republican support is all but ruled out in the big spending bill. Rather than build defenses against this threat to the republic, lawmakers appear drunk on their own power, showing off their muscles rather than doing what it takes to compromise.

Perhaps Americans have gotten used to the idea that the country has survived a coup attempt. The evidence for this is increasingly overwhelming. The recent disclosures include a detailed memorandum written by one of Trump’s attorneys outlining a detailed six-step plan for make Trump president after he lost the election, scrapping the votes of millions of Americans so that the man they chose, Biden, could not assume the presidency.

Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist who helped Trump become president in 2016, just admitted that he was in contact with Trump after the election and that, on December 30, about a week before that grisly attack in the US Capitol told Trump: “Kill the Biden presidency in the cradle”, as journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa tell in their book “Peril”.

The alarm that held Democrats together during the Trump years has apparently faded. The euphoria that came with Biden’s victory has been replaced by business as usual.

During a different, less dangerous time, that might be acceptable. But not now.

Republicans, increasingly compliant with Trump’s wishes, are positioning themselves to take control of Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024. And by all indications, some are planning to do so by any means necessary, including theft of elections.

His project is so far along that if Trump’s effort to steal the 2020 election were happening today, it could stand a chance of success, given the new restrictive laws for voters who are passing Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country.

By 2024, unless Democrats can produce an even larger and tamper-proof majority, Trump and his undemocratic supporters could very well succeed where they last failed.

Instead of standing up and telling the truth, which Trump lost, prominent GOP figures are too cowards to speak and dodge the topic or repeat the Big lie. Most Republican voters have been brainwashed into believing that Trump won.

Think of the damage: almost 8 out of 10 Republicans believe that Trump won the 2020 election. marketing The former president, backed by the efforts of Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, ignored or endorsed by Republican Party officials, have conspired to undermine the credibility of American democracy.

Now Trump is tightening his grip on a previously respectable party that he has now turned into a cult of personality in which even an overwhelming and categorically proven truth, such as who won the election, cannot survive.

As he tries to chart a path to the presidency in 2024, even if he loses the popular vote for the third time, Trump is backing Republicans who promote his lie about the stolen elections and an assortment of de electoral conspiracy theorists, in the hopes that they will become state secretaries and attorneys general, and members of Congress, helping you reverse any inconvenient losses down the road.

To end this systematic and unprecedented effort to destroy American democracy for the sake of one man, Democrats have to help Biden have a successful presidency. That means sacrificing some of your personal political preferences for the sake of pushing through important legislation.

That’s true even for those who think that Biden should have done some things differently. In fact, supporters of democracy around the world – even outside the United States – should expect it to succeed.

Biden has persuasively explained that the world is at a turning point. This is more than a battle between Democrats and Republicans. It is more than a battle over the future of this country. The whole world is in the middle of a competition between democracy and autocracy, and democracy is losing ground. What happens in the United States is a key test for democracy as a system, a crucial opportunity to show that democracy can, in fact, work for the people.

At a time when autocracy is gaining ground around the world, as repressive dictators try to show that autocracy is superior to democracy, it is essential that the president of the United States comply. It is imperative that Democrats in Congress take a moment in their internal differences to consider the looming threat. Remember what the world was like before January 20. The danger has not disappeared.