Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor in San Francisco, is co-counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
When Charles Darwin returned to England in 1836 from two years aboard the HMS Beagle, visiting the Galapagos Islands, Chile and Australia, he reflected on his observations of rare species and developed his theory of evolution.
His “Origin of Species” shook the scientific world with his concept that genetic variations explain how organisms adapt and thrive, particularly when adverse conditions threaten them.
Likewise for human organizations – business or government institutions nimble enough to adjust to adversity can reform and grow.
Such evolution is not automatic. It requires stakeholders who demand it.
In democracies, progress requires that groups suffering harm or foreseeing danger advocate forcefully for change. With a MAGA House majority about to take power in Washington, vigilance in the next two years by those committed to individual rights, equality and constitutional government will be essential.
We’ve just seen three examples in Congress showcasing such activism from ordinary Americans.
First, on Dec. 7, President Joe Biden signed #MeToo legislation that bars employers’ nondisclosure agreements requiring employees to remain silent rather than complain about sexual harassment.
Astonishingly, every senator voted for the law banning these forced-gag agreements. Senate unanimity took a national consensus that did not exist a decade ago. The #MeToo movement built it; women bravely spoke out, told their stories and changed American society.
Second, on Dec. 13, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act. It reversed 1996’s shameful Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Bill Clinton for culture war advantage. Two decades before same-sex marriage became a constitutional right, DOMA said states that barred such marriages need not recognize same-sex unions from states that permitted them.
The Respect for Marriage Act mandates that all states recognize gay marriages lawfully performed in other states. That matters should the Supreme Court majority overturn those marriages’ constitutional protection. Justice Clarence Thomas has hinted at that.
Again, it took committed activists – this time the LGBTQ community – to achieve a goal that looked impossible a generation ago. Gallup has reported that the paltry 26 percent of Americans who supported same-sex marriage in 1996 has risen to 71 percent in 2022.
Bear with a personal story illustrating that in politics, like physics, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, at least if sufficient human forces mobilize in response. Therein lies hope when bad things happen.
In 1998, I led a legal team in a case that was a steppingstone to gay marriage rights. We successfully defended San Francisco’s Equal Benefits Ordinance, which enormously expanded domestic partner benefits in the city and, indeed, across the nation.
The ordinance came about because three gay and lesbian activists were furious about DOMA. On the theory, “Don’t get mad, get equal,” they persuaded local legislators to adopt the law. A bad event begat a good.
Which takes us to the third piece of legislation. On Friday, Biden signed a federal spending bill that includes the Electoral Count Reform Act. The ECRA is a crucial step to preserve our democracy, closing loopholes in its 1887 predecessor that former President Donald Trump nearly exploited to overturn the 2020 election.
The new law clarifies that the vice president’s role presiding over the certification of a presidential election is purely ceremonial. They cannot reject a state’s official electoral votes or delay the congressional certification, as Trump unsuccessfully tried to pressure Mike Pence to do.
Another key change is to limit state legislatures’ power to declare the winner. The reform act clarifies that a “failed election” occurs only when a force majeure has interrupted the balloting. Without that change from the 1886 Electoral Count Act, a renegade, Republican-dominated, MAGA legislature could wrongly declare that “ballot fraud” caused the election to “fail” and then select the losing candidate.
Like the #MeToo legislation and the Respect for Marriage Act, this reform happened because of grassroots organizations committed to preserving democracy. And like those other bills, this legislation came in reaction to a threat – in this case, the lame duck Congress was pushed to act by the election of a House MAGA majority unlikely to approve the change.
The incoming House leaders have told us what they will do: not legislate but devote all their attention to a scorched earth strategy of attacking Biden, his family, the Jan. 6 committee, the FBI and the Justice Department.
They won’t work to enact kitchen table legislation; in fact, they are likely to try cutting Social Security and Medicare. Negative action and attack will be their trademarks.
For the rest of us who want positive government, democracy is not a spectator sport. The danger to it in the new House is as obvious as the Capitol dome. The essential thing is to mobilize to contain the threat.
We, the people, can keep our democracy by responding to the next two years’ anti-democratic overreach by MAGA House members. Then in 2024, we can vote them out and evolve, in Darwinian fashion, into the better version of America’s self.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.