I have written this piece for The Atlantic. It begins:

Has the Republican Party engaged in “a coordinated attack on democracy,” by restricting voting rules, opening the campaign-money spigot, blocking progressive local laws and consumer protections, engaging in partisan gerrymandering, and stacking the courts with judges to give their repressive program a green light?

That’s the provocative thesis of Zachary Roth’s engaging and very readable book,The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy. But Roth’s argument is overwrought, painting the picture of a vast right-wing conspiracy with too broad of a brush, and failing to distinguish between normal political competition and political chicanery.

It concludes:

Of course, many Republicans fight for less environmental protection, no federal minimum wage, a lifetime ban on felons’ voting, and courts with Republican-appointed judges who uphold their legislative agendas and constitutional vision.  That doesn’t mean they are rigging democracy any more than Democrats are rigging things when they fight for more environmental protection, higher minimum wages, reinstatement of felon voting rights after they complete their sentences, and courts with Democratic-appointed judges who uphold their legislative agendas and constitutional vision.

It’s a mistake to read all Republican efforts to enact their vision into law as assaults on democracy. Some may be, like the ridiculous efforts to make it harder to register and to vote. But legitimate disagreement on policy and ideology does not a conspiracy make.

Democrats can and should fight the Republicans over their ideas, and call them out when they seek to limit access to the ballot. Roth’s book tells compelling stories about disturbing conservative agendas that every progressive should know, and that not only will make those on the left mad but hopefully mobilized into political action.

But labeling every Republican belief and ideological position an assault on democracy will cause further deterioration in Americans’ faith in the democratic process.