The public has tuned out Biden’s voting rights push for two reasons. First, his hyperbolic rhetoric about Republicans’ so-called efforts to dismantle voting rights doesn’t hold up. Everyone who voted in one of the most recent elections knows it has never been easier to vote than it is now. This past presidential election saw record-high voter turnout among black, Hispanic, and white people. Even in Georgia, which has become the villain in Democrats’ voter suppression myth, minority voters turned out in higher numbers during the 2020 and 2021 elections than in years past.

Second, the public is dealing with two very big obstacles that affect their lives on a daily basis: inflation and COVID-19. It’s a bit difficult to take Democrats’ claims about our dying democracy seriously when those same lawmakers don’t seem to care at all about the things making it more difficult for people to live normally. Inflation has accelerated to 7% in the last month, which means prices are rising and workers’ paychecks aren’t going as far as they used to. At the same time, COVID-19 restrictions and mandates that refuse to go away have upended their children’s education and even threatened their livelihoods.

But not one Democrat in Congress besides Manchin wants to focus heavily on those problems or maybe even acknowledge that those problems exist. We’re barreling toward a recession and getting sucked into a mass mania, and Democrats want to instead focus on federalizing an election process that works just fine for the vast majority of people. Talk about out of touch.