Robert Kagan scared the shit out of everyone. Now what?
It has become obvious that Democrats need to win the 2022 midterm elections overwhelmingly. And continue to win overwhelmingly. Election oversight by Republican state legislatures going forward is bringing us to the point where American democracy cannot survive anything short of overwhelming Democratic victories. And even then it could be touch and go.
Robert Kagan is one of those conservatives who left the Republican party after Trump became the presidential nominee in 2016 (Wikipedia bio here). And his opinion piece in the Sept. 23 issue of The Washington Post is one of those narratives in which every sentence rings in the mind like the transcribed thoughts of God Almighty. Liberals wept. Here’s a piece of it:
…Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trump’s charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.
Meanwhile, the amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020. Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may “revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election” by a simple majority vote. Some state legislatures seek to impose criminal penalties on local election officials alleged to have committed “technical infractions,” including obstructing the view of poll watchers.
The stage is thus being set for chaos…
— God Almighty
So Democrats, vote. Independents, vote. Republicans like Robert Kagan, vote. Please. (I’m using the imperative voice here.)
Yes, this is a get-out-the-vote piece. And in researching it, I found little to amplify. There appears to be no central Democratic Party-sponsored web page that elucidates the threats or consolidates available resources to blunt the threats. And the threats are multitudinous. Joe Biden’s summer was as bad as his spring was good.
This poll in Iowa is portentous. Biden’s disapproval rating in Iowa is 62%. His approval rating is lower than Trump’s worst showing in the Iowa poll: 35% in December 2017. In the same Iowa poll, Barack Obama was at 36% in February 2014. Only George W. Bush polled lower: 25% in September 2008.
The common wisdom is, well, common: The party in power usually loses seats in the midterms. Since the Civil War, the president’s party has gained off-year House seats only three times, Walter Shapiro wrote in The New Republic on Aug. 16. And Shapiro noted that “many of these repudiations of a sitting president have been stunningly unequivocal: Since 1934, the Oval Office party has lost 40 or more House seats in nine off-year elections. The Senate numbers are less dramatic, but still lopsided: The party in power gained seats in just seven of 26 off-year elections since 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment mandated direct election of senators.”
The point of Shapiro’s piece, though, was to inject some reasons for optimism into Democratic prospects for the midterms. He tries hard, and even resorts to his own get-out-the-vote appeal: “A sense of foreboding about 2022 can easily lead to depressed Democratic turnout. Remember that Republicans would not feel forced to resort to desperation tactics like voter suppression if they believed that they were on the right side of history and the coming decade.” Shapiro suggests that Democrats need to keep the repellant idea of Donald Trump on the ballot, inspiring whatever never-Trump votes might be out there for the taking, while simultaneously adopting Reagan’s shiny “Morning in America” optimism. Hey, it’s something.
There are other optimistic pebbles out there. CNN’s Chris Cillizza notes that Democrats appear to be faring better in redistricting efforts than some experts assumed, quoting a tweet from David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report: “State-by-state estimates now show Rs netting just 1–2 House seats from redistricting alone, down from 3–4 a few months ago. The outlook for Dems has slightly improved in IN, NJ & NY.” Wasserman estimates that Republicans in New York could lose four seats via redistricting alone (also pointing out that New York is one of few states where Democrats control the entire process).
I prefer nurturing the sense of apocalyptic democratic end times to inspire a massive Democratic response in 2022. It’s obvious now: Trump is the Republican party. As Kagan wrote:
With the party firmly under his thumb, Trump is now fighting the Biden administration on separate fronts. One is normal, legitimate political competition, where Republicans criticize Biden’s policies, feed and fight the culture wars, and in general behave like a typical hostile opposition.
The other front is outside the bounds of constitutional and democratic competition and into the realm of illegal or extralegal efforts to undermine the electoral process. The two are intimately related, because the Republican Party has used its institutional power in the political sphere to shield Trump and his followers from the consequences of their illegal and extralegal activities in the lead-up to Jan. 6. Thus, Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik, in their roles as party leaders, run interference for the Trump movement in the sphere of legitimate politics, while Republicans in lesser positions cheer on the Jan. 6 perpetrators, turning them into martyrs and heroes, and encouraging illegal acts in the future.
— God Almighty
Republican legislatures are going to win future elections at the margins. Or overstep by decertifying victories in clear Democrat-majority jurisdictions. Either could trigger huge public protests, by parties on all sides, that one can only hope remain nonviolent.
The midterm elections begin what I think will be a series of election cycles that will decide whether democracy survives in this nation. And that survival requires clear, undisputable Democratic victories. That is the purpose, and the rationale, for every voter and every vote until Trump’s stranglehold on America is loosened.
And then there was the word. And the word was vote.
Originally published at https://kcroes.wordpress.com on September 26, 2021.
