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The insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 failed. Donald Trump is not the president. But at the state level, the Republican war on elections is posting startling wins. They are trying to do what Trump failed to do: neuter elections as a check on Republican power.\n\nA new report by three voting rights groups found that 24 laws have been passed in 14 states this year that will allow state legislatures to \u201cpoliticize, criminalize and interfere in election administration.\u201d And a May analysis from the Brennan Center found that Republican-controlled legislatures in 14 states have passed 22 laws that made voting harder, with dozens of others currently moving through the legislative process.\n\nThis is an example of what I\u2019ve sometimes referred to as the \u201cdoom loop of democracy\u201d: highly gerrymandered Republican state legislatures in key swing states passing legislation that gives them more power to discourage Democratic-leaning groups from voting, throw out legitimate votes and overturn election results \u2014 all of it backed up by Republican-dominated courts.\n\nAri Berman is a senior reporter at Mother Jones and the author of \u201cGive Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.\u201d He\u2019s done excellent coverage of these state bills. So I wanted to bring him on, in part, to understand these bills on a more detailed level: What do they actually do? What kind of impact will they have?\n\nBut we also discuss the Republican Party\u2019s minoritarian path to power, potential nightmare 2024 election scenarios, how voting rights became a culture war issue, whether the United States is becoming a \u201ccompetitive authoritarianism\u201d political system, why the biggest scandal in American democracy is what\u2019s legal and even expected, what HR1 \u2014 even if it had passed \u2014 would and wouldn\u2019t have fixed and much more.\n\n\nMentioned in this episode: \n\n\u201cWhat Georgia\u2019s Voting Law Really Does\u201d by Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein\n\n\u201cThe Insurrection Was Put Down. The GOP Plan for Minority Rule Marches On.\u201d by Ari Berman \n\n\u201cCall it authoritarianism\u201d by Zack Beauchamp\n\n\u201cStatement of Concern: The Threats to American Democracy and the Need for National Voting and Election Administration Standards\u201d by multiple\n\n\u201cAdvantage, GOP\u201d by By Laura Bronner and Nathaniel Rakich\n\n\u201c2020 Census: What the Reapportionment Numbers Mean\u201d by Dave Wasserman\n\n\n\n\n\nRecommendations: \n\nTinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carr\xe9\n\nRace and Reunion by David Blight\n\nDirty Work by Eyal Press\n\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.\n\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\n\n\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.