President Biden on Tuesday decried the wave of GOP-backed voting restrictions as a "21st century Jim Crow assault" on American democracy. But "good government" groups want to see the president do more than give an impassioned speech.
While advocates were pleased by Biden's use of the bully pulpit to promote the need for broad election reforms, they said his address fell short of providing tangible steps forward. Biden once again called on Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, but did not acknowledge the fact that the Senate filibuster remains a huge impediment to either bill's enactment.
In the first seven months of his presidency, as well as during his presidential campaign, Biden has been an ardent supporter of voting rights, ending partisan gerrymandering and curbing dark money in politics. But Biden has done little to take these issues beyond talking points — something reform advocates have repeatedly implored him to do. Even during the primary campaign, Biden offered far less for specific reforms than his opponents proposed.
On Tuesday afternoon, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Biden spoke about how Americans turned out to vote in record numbers during last year's election, despite the raging coronavirus pandemic. But instead of celebrating that, the president said, there has been a continued attack on the election's integrity, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
"No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny and such high standards," Biden said. "The Big Lie is just that: a big lie."
"Time and again, we've weathered threats to the right to vote in free and fair elections. And each time, we found a way to overcome. And that's what we must do today," Biden continued. "As soon as Congress passes the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, I will sign it and let the whole world see it."
But the president neglected to mention how Congress will pass either bill with the filibuster still intact and Republican in unified opposition. Last month, Senate Democrats brought the For the People Act to the chamber floor for a procedural vote, but Republicans refused to debate the bill.
The Voting Rights Advancement Act has not yet been introduced in this Congress. On Wednesday, more than 160 companies — including Amazon, Google, Facebook and Starbucks — signed a letter to Congress urging them to introduce and pass the VRAA "because the freedom to vote is everyone's business."
Following Biden's speech on Tuesday, Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said the president and Vice President Harris must do everything in their power to ensure the For the People Act and the VRAA become law, "even if that means supporting the change of archaic Senate rules to protect our freedom to vote."
"If the Senate can bypass the filibuster to send core elements of the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan to President Biden's desk, it ought to be able to do the same for anti-corruption legislation that protects the freedom to vote, breaks the grip of big money in politics, and ends gerrymandering," said Karen Hobart Flynn, president of Common Cause.
RepresentUs, a prominent democracy reform organization, noted that Biden also failed to mention an important deadline that is fast-approaching. On Aug. 16, the Census Bureau is expected to deliver redistricting data so states can start the mapmaking process. However, 35 states are at "high or extreme risk" of partisan gerrymandering, which the For the People Act bans.
Additionally, RepresentUs criticized Biden for only mentioning the sweeping reform package "sparingly" since his joint address to Congress in late April. The group's analysis of the Biden administration's public statements found just six presidential speeches or statements and four tweets from the @POTUS account that mention the For the People Act.
"Although the president promised to 'fight like heck with every tool at my disposal for its passage,' his public-facing advocacy for the bill is largely limited to a handful of tweets and short references in statements," RepresentUs noted in its analysis.
Other reform advocates want to see less talking and more direct action from the president.
"The president and his administration must move beyond speeches and begin actively lobbying Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit campaign finance reform group.
Biden has flexed his presidential powers once already. In March, he issued an executive order promoting voting access. The directive asks federal agencies to evaluate how they can, within their purview of the law, encourage voter registration and participation.
But on Tuesday, Biden made no mention of this executive order, which Valencia Richardson, an attorney for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, found surprising. Her organization has sent letters to six federal agencies outlining recommendations and best practices for promoting voting access.
"By putting the onus almost entirely on Congress to defend voting rights, President Biden downplayed the more active role that the administration could play in facilitating access to voter registration and voting," she said.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.