To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the authoritarian Senate Republicans voted in lockstep goosestep yesterday – for the third time this year – to block any debate on federal voting rights. Let me repeat that: Not only does the Trumpist GOP oppose reforms that would ensure ballot access for all Americans, it won’t even agree to talk about them.

As President Biden warned back in July, “There is an unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty…the most significant test for our democracy since the Civil War.” Indeed, at last count, 19 red states – ginned up by MAGA delusions about a “stolen” 2020 election – have enacted 33 laws making it harder for some Americans (guess which ones) to cast ballots. Some of these laws cut the number of polling places and time windows for early voting; other laws narrow the time windows for obtaining mail-in ballots and limit the locations of drop boxes; others impose criminal penalties on election workers who encourage people to vote by mail.

Once again – and I’m as fed up as you are, asking the same question – those of us who are watching democracy die a slow death are compelled to wonder: What are Biden and the Democrats gonna do about this? Are they gonna fight fire with fire, by erasing the Senate filibuster so that federal voting rights legislation can pass…or will they simply let the Republicans burn everything down? What’s the point of controlling the White House and the Senate if they’re not going to flex the necessary muscle to defend this nation’s most fundamental mission, which is seriously threatened by a cult that worships nothing but brute power?

Not a single Senate Republican voted yesterday to even discuss the bill that would (among other things) designate Election Day as a holiday, protect same-day voter registration, guarantee two weeks of early voting, and allow anyone to vote by mail. Without the filibuster’s artificial 60-vote threshold (a rule that appears nowhere in the Constitution), the GOP stonewall wouldn’t have succeeded; a simple majority (50 Democrats plus veep Kamala Harris) would’ve been sufficient to open debate. Meanwhile, the GOP in 19 states has passed its voter suppression laws with simple majorities.

Starting with Biden, who as a Senate alum still appears to revere the filibuster, Democrats seem incapable of rising to the moment, of doing all that’s necessary to thwart what independent Maine Sen. Angus King, in a floor speech yesterday, calls the “downward spiral toward a hollow shell of democracy.” This, despite the fact that, collectively, Democratic senators represent 41.5 million more Americans than their GOP counterparts. Leave it to the Democrats, who bring squirt guns to gunfights, to surrender to the tyranny of the minority.

What’s the big deal about changing the Senate rules in order to do business? That happens a lot. In a recent span of 45 years, between 1969 and 2014, the Senate changed its rules 161 times. A Democratic Senate amended its filibuster rule during the Obama era, in order to confirm – via a simple majority – Obama’s federal court nominees. A Republican Senate amended the filibuster rule during the Trump era, in order to confirm – via a simple majority – Trump’s Supreme Court nominees.

Granted, most Senate Democrats want to amend or shelve the filibuster so that voting rights can pass. But colleagues Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema – our de facto president and vice president – still refuse to consider doing what needs to be done. And in fairness to Biden, he has little leverage over Manchin, who hails from red West Virginia. The era is long gone when a president like Lyndon B. Johnson could squeeze compliance from a recalcitrant senator by threatening to cancel pet projects in the senator’s home state. Democrats apparently have to hope that Manchin and Sinema will somehow experience come-to-Jesus moments all on their own, and realize that the do-nothing Senate has become dysfunctional.

But let’s not mince words. Walter Shaub, former director the federal Office of Government Ethics, said it best yesterday: “Democracy faces an existential threat…Say what you want about the fascists, but they know where they’re going and they know how to get there. The road to hell is well marked.”