As expected, Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republican minority have used the filibuster to shut down a “bipartisan” commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

We need to grasp what this really means: they are deliberately leaving open the option to take over the government by force if they lose an election. And they’re not leaving it there; they are also enacting laws across the country to restrict voting rights in ways that will let them bypass the will of American voters.

Many people don’t seem to understand how serious this is — and I’d include many Democratic politicians in that. The Republican Party is very systematically and deliberately arranging things to create permanent Republican dominion over the US government — legally if they can, by force if necessary. If the Democratic Party doesn’t wake up and start fighting back much more strongly, the days of representative democracy in the US will be over.