By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Columnist |
Yesterday at 5:51 p.m. EST
Although Donald Trump has hovered over American politics since leaving office, most voters saw him as yesterday’s news. Now, he’s very much today’s news, and — thanks to the accelerating pace of the House’s Jan. 6 inquiry — tomorrow’s. This should change the trajectory of this year’s midterm election politics.
Opinions to start the day, in your inbox. Sign up.
Democrats did well in 2018 and 2020, when a significant share of the electorate thought the survival of our democracy was on the ballot. Democrats need to put democracy on the ballot again this year.
Opinion: How Congress can keep Trump and other insurrectionists out of public office
Trump served the Republican Party well as a visible but limited presence. He agitated his base, keeping his supporters active and engaged. This helped produce high turnouts for Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey this past fall.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the electorate was focused on prices and the ongoing pandemic, to the disadvantage of President Biden and his party. This allowed Republicans — Virginia’s new governor, Glenn Youngkin, is the prime example — to profit from Trumpism without being forced to stand firmly against the former president’s lies about the 2020 election or his abuses of office.
ADVERTISING
Now, the urgent need to shake a widespread complacency about our governing institutions has been brought home by the work of journalists and the House select committee investigating Jan. 6. Trump has done his bit, too.
Trump said the subversive part out loud on Sunday when he declared that his vice president, Mike Pence, “could have overturned the election.” This acknowledged outright what Trump’s real goal was. The day before, Trump dangled the prospect of pardons for those convicted over the Jan. 6 attack if he were returned to office.
In a rerun of his eagerness to use mobs to advance his interests, he called for “the biggest protests we have ever had” if prosecutors in New York and Atlanta act against him. And the New York Times reported this week that, while president, Trump directed his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to explore whether the Department of Homeland Security or the Justice Department could legally take control of voting machines in swing states.
The stakes here involve not just what Trump did but also what Republicans might be preparing to do in 2022 and 2024. Trump is pushing to elect secretaries of state and governors who endorse his lies about 2020 and would be willing to politicize the process of counting ballots. Already, more than a dozen Republican-controlled states have rolled back ballot access.
So why are Democrats not shouting from the rooftops about the need to protect democracy? One reason political consultants advance: Democracy issues are a tough sell with most voters, who are far more invested in their day-to-day problems than in a former president or a threat that still feels abstract.
Robert Kagan: Our constitutional crisis is already here
“Making democracy a front-and-center issue is in competition with the malaise people feel over the economy, even if there’s a lot of good news about the economy,” Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg said in an interview. Voters, she added, “look at January 6 as something of a stand-alone event.”
In contrast to 2018 and 2020, said Stephanie Cutter, a longtime Democratic consultant who worked in the Obama administration, “in 2022, the threat of Trump will not be enough to make suburban women vote Democratic.”
We’re living in a classic case of the Political Consultants Dilemma. Candidates are urged to take a pass on important — and potentially beneficial — issues because they are secondary or tertiary to key voting groups. Yet the only chance such issues have of becoming salient is if politicians and their campaigns press them relentlessly.
After four American diplomats were killed in Libya in 2012, Republicans spent years turning the word “Benghazi” into a running attack line against then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — with little or no basis in fact. By contrast, evidence of a threat to democracy today is copious and clear.
Despite their caveats, both Cutter and Greenberg offer paths toward making the looming danger central in 2022. Cutter noted that highlighting bread-and-butter concerns does not preclude Democrats from arguing that “if we don’t win in 2022, the fight for democracy moves backward,” adding: “There’s room for both.”
Greenberg sees ways to link the "big lie” about 2020 with “disinformation about vaccines” as part of the same “dark force” that ignites anxiety among suburban voters. And an argument that “voters should decide elections, not mobs or politicians” would also resonate, she said, because “what people get upset about is that their votes don’t really count.”
Democrats will be guilty of political malpractice if they fail to challenge Republicans to get off the fence. For their own sake and the country’s, they must demand that GOP candidates stand unambiguously either with or against Trump’s ongoing efforts to demolish American democracy.
Columnist |
Yesterday at 5:51 p.m. EST
Although Donald Trump has hovered over American politics since leaving office, most voters saw him as yesterday’s news. Now, he’s very much today’s news, and — thanks to the accelerating pace of the House’s Jan. 6 inquiry — tomorrow’s. This should change the trajectory of this year’s midterm election politics.
Opinions to start the day, in your inbox. Sign up.
Democrats did well in 2018 and 2020, when a significant share of the electorate thought the survival of our democracy was on the ballot. Democrats need to put democracy on the ballot again this year.
Opinion: How Congress can keep Trump and other insurrectionists out of public office
Trump served the Republican Party well as a visible but limited presence. He agitated his base, keeping his supporters active and engaged. This helped produce high turnouts for Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey this past fall.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the electorate was focused on prices and the ongoing pandemic, to the disadvantage of President Biden and his party. This allowed Republicans — Virginia’s new governor, Glenn Youngkin, is the prime example — to profit from Trumpism without being forced to stand firmly against the former president’s lies about the 2020 election or his abuses of office.
ADVERTISING
Now, the urgent need to shake a widespread complacency about our governing institutions has been brought home by the work of journalists and the House select committee investigating Jan. 6. Trump has done his bit, too.
Trump said the subversive part out loud on Sunday when he declared that his vice president, Mike Pence, “could have overturned the election.” This acknowledged outright what Trump’s real goal was. The day before, Trump dangled the prospect of pardons for those convicted over the Jan. 6 attack if he were returned to office.
In a rerun of his eagerness to use mobs to advance his interests, he called for “the biggest protests we have ever had” if prosecutors in New York and Atlanta act against him. And the New York Times reported this week that, while president, Trump directed his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to explore whether the Department of Homeland Security or the Justice Department could legally take control of voting machines in swing states.
The stakes here involve not just what Trump did but also what Republicans might be preparing to do in 2022 and 2024. Trump is pushing to elect secretaries of state and governors who endorse his lies about 2020 and would be willing to politicize the process of counting ballots. Already, more than a dozen Republican-controlled states have rolled back ballot access.
So why are Democrats not shouting from the rooftops about the need to protect democracy? One reason political consultants advance: Democracy issues are a tough sell with most voters, who are far more invested in their day-to-day problems than in a former president or a threat that still feels abstract.
Robert Kagan: Our constitutional crisis is already here
“Making democracy a front-and-center issue is in competition with the malaise people feel over the economy, even if there’s a lot of good news about the economy,” Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg said in an interview. Voters, she added, “look at January 6 as something of a stand-alone event.”
In contrast to 2018 and 2020, said Stephanie Cutter, a longtime Democratic consultant who worked in the Obama administration, “in 2022, the threat of Trump will not be enough to make suburban women vote Democratic.”
We’re living in a classic case of the Political Consultants Dilemma. Candidates are urged to take a pass on important — and potentially beneficial — issues because they are secondary or tertiary to key voting groups. Yet the only chance such issues have of becoming salient is if politicians and their campaigns press them relentlessly.
After four American diplomats were killed in Libya in 2012, Republicans spent years turning the word “Benghazi” into a running attack line against then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — with little or no basis in fact. By contrast, evidence of a threat to democracy today is copious and clear.
Despite their caveats, both Cutter and Greenberg offer paths toward making the looming danger central in 2022. Cutter noted that highlighting bread-and-butter concerns does not preclude Democrats from arguing that “if we don’t win in 2022, the fight for democracy moves backward,” adding: “There’s room for both.”
Greenberg sees ways to link the "big lie” about 2020 with “disinformation about vaccines” as part of the same “dark force” that ignites anxiety among suburban voters. And an argument that “voters should decide elections, not mobs or politicians” would also resonate, she said, because “what people get upset about is that their votes don’t really count.”
Democrats will be guilty of political malpractice if they fail to challenge Republicans to get off the fence. For their own sake and the country’s, they must demand that GOP candidates stand unambiguously either with or against Trump’s ongoing efforts to demolish American democracy.
