One of the pleasures that sometimes comes of staking out a position in a blog is finding agreement, after the fact, with a favorite writer. This is especially true when one has taken a controversial stand. In following American politics, I often read stuff by political scientists. I’m a fan of Jonathan Bernstein, the only political scientist (though he has left the academy for Bloomberg) whom I read virtually every day. (I’m not on Twitter.)
Bernstein’s Bloomberg / the Washington Post column this morning was a treat.
He suggests that yesterday’s vote in the House on the Electoral Count Act says something
about the state of the Republican Party. As it turns out, when it comes to defending democracy, so-called mainstream Republicans may not be so different from extremist Republicans.
This difference was the topic of intense debate in the Democratic Party this year. The party supported some extreme candidates in Republican congressional primaries, on the theory that they would be easier to defeat in the general election. Critics said the practice was irresponsible and risked the possibility of putting people who would be a threat to US democracy in Congress.
I responded to those critics with an unabashed defense of the Democratic tactic. Bernstein doesn’t endorse this view, though he offers that it may be right. But his column offers support for this approach – more persuasively perhaps and certainly more authoritatively than my post did. He writes:
Wednesday’s vote doesn’t completely end that debate. But it does demonstrate that most mainstream Republicans are not interested in defending the Constitution — either because they are radicals themselves, or because they won’t stand up to those who are. The House debate of the Electoral Count Act demonstrated exactly why Democrats may have been justified in their meddling. With only a handful of exceptions, most notably Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, a cosponsor of the bill, Republicans rejected the bill. Indeed, the party whipped against it, indicating that opposing this reform — opposing a key defense against a future coup — was an official party position.
Noting that few Republicans even addressed the merits of the bill, Bernstein points to earlier reporting from Axios that Republicans voted against bill because Liz Cheney was for it.
The obvious implication is that some of those Republicans are perfectly happy with a vulnerable election process — and the rest aren’t willing to fight for one. Not against Trump; not against Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and the other radicals who are the real leaders of the House Republicans; not against Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin and the other leaders of the Republican Party.
So the problem isn’t just the extremists — it’s the rank-and-file Republican politicians. It means that there’s just not much of a difference between a House Republican conference with a few more radicals and one with a few more mainstream members.
Exactly! (As I argued in my post.) And, while still declining to endorse the conclusion I drew, Bernstein bolsters my line of reasoning:
[T]here’s a good argument that the more House Republicans are elected, the more US democracy is in danger. (And for whatever it’s worth, in all six districts where Democrats meddled and the more extreme Republican was nominated, the Democrat is likely to win.)
I didn’t know that Democrats were favored in six of six House elections that they meddled in. If Democrats win all six, I believe that offers additional confirmation of my judgment.
A final note: This is more than a matter of abstract debate. The stakes are high. The Republican Party poses an ongoing threat to American democracy. Republican leaders – “either because they are radicals themselves, or because they won’t stand up to those who are,” in Bernstein’s words – are damaging the guardrails that protect our democratic institutions.
The underlying justification for Democrats’ meddling in Republican primaries is the imperative to put a stop to this. In the context of a resolute defense of democracy (and a thoughtful, informed strategic assessment), the pragmatic choice to meddle makes sense. As I wrote, “The surest way to change the Republican Party, to limit the damage it is doing our to democracy, is to defeat Republican candidates at the polls.”