Republicans’ Big Lie makes it all but impossible for our republic to heal itself without new laws to defend democracy
At the risk of giving away a speechwriting secret, one time-tested way to organize a presidential address – or any piece of persuasive writing – is with something called “Monroe’s Motivated Sequence”. It’s a five-part structure: explain the context; define the problem; lay out the solution; put forward a vision of the future; issue a call to action.
By this measure, on Tuesday President Biden delivered two-fifths of a major address on democracy reform. He connected the wave of Republican anti-voting laws to the 6 January attack on the Capitol and the insidious legacy of segregation and Jim Crow. He rightly referred to Republicans’ authoritarian efforts as “the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of fair and free elections in our history.”
David Litt is an American political speechwriter and author of the comedic memoir Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years. He runs a Substack on democracy