Thank you for being part of the conversation.\xa0 This is Play It Forward.\xa0 Real people.\xa0 Real stories.\xa0 The struggle to Play It Forward Episode 623 with U.S. Ambassador Ira Shapiro the author of The Betrayal How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America. The Founding Fathers gave the U.S. Senate many functions, but it had one fundamental responsibility\u2014its raison d\u2019etre: to provide the check against a dangerous president who threatened our democracy. Two hundred and thirty years later, when Donald Trump, a potential authoritarian, finally reached the White House, the Senate should have served as both America\u2019s first and last lines of defense. Instead, we had the nightmare scenario: today\u2019s Senate, reduced through a long period of decline to a hyper-partisan, gridlocked shadow of its former self, was unable to meet its fundamental responsibility. Shapiro\xa0documents the pivotal challenges facing the Senate during the Trump administration, arguing that the body\u2019s failure to provide leadership represents the most catastrophic failure of government in American history.\xa0The last section of the book covers the Senate\u2019s performance during President Biden\u2019s first year in office and looks forward to the 2022 Senate elections and beyond.
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