Why 2018 matters
The statement that any given election, particularly recently, is the “most important in our nation’s history” has been consistently met with ridicule—with good reason. This piece is being written in Gettysburg, whose history is a stark and grim reminder that more significant elections have occurred in our nation’s history. The significance of the elections of 2012 and 2014 pales in comparison to that of the elections of 1860 and 1864, 1932 and 1968, to name but four.
However, the events of the last three years should lead any reasonable person to conclude that this statement is no longer an irrelevant cliché. The midterm elections of 2018 are, beyond a reasonable doubt, the most significant elections in at least two generations.
It may be easy to pin all of this significance on the incompetent, reckless, self-infatuated buffoon occupying the Oval Office, but he is solely one facet of a much larger crisis in both American republicanism and public policymaking. The consequences of reelecting a Republican Congress and reaffirming Republican dominance of state and local governments extend beyond enabling the nightmares that the chief executive has wrought. Republican leadership in this country has shown little to no regard for the norms of legislation, compromise, or reasonable public policymaking.
It is worth noting that not all Republicans are created equal. There is a dying breed of principled members of the party of Lincoln that is on its last legs: John Kasich, Larry Hogan, and Charlie Baker. However, these three governors aside, it is exceedingly difficult to find notable elected Republicans who are worthy of respect despite Democrats’ fundamental disagreements with many of their positions. They have been replaced by partisans who are not predisposed to compromise and whose sole function is to sow division through toxic public policies.
The most logical place to begin a discussion of Republicans’ destructive policymaking is what I will refer to as the “Scott Walker model” of state governance, pioneered by Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republican Party over the past decade. This model contains two major pillars: reduction in the franchise and extreme social conservatism. Wisconsin and Republican-controlled states across the country have attempted to drastically curtail voting rights for traditionally-Democratic constituencies: a voter ID law in North Carolina that targeted African-Americans with “surgical precision,” a law in Ohio that purges voters from the rolls after they fail to vote over a remarkably short period, a secretary of state in Kansas that has made it his crusade to prevent “illegals” from voting. This allows them to cement their power to implement their agenda, a central pillar of which is a form of social conservatism better defined by exploitation of a significant portion of the electorate’s fear of the unknown: a law, once again in North Carolina, banning transgender individuals from using the restroom they feel comfortable using; an Arizona sheriff convicted of contempt of court after refusing to change his department’s practices of racial profiling; a Republican governor and legislature in Michigan flagrantly ignoring a crisis in which residents of a majority-minority city are poisoned by the water flowing from their taps.
On the federal level, the destruction of legislative norms by Republican-controlled Congresses since 2009 has trodden on the democratic, constitutional principles of the republic. This is best exemplified by Mitch McConnell’s unconstitutional refusal to hold a hearing for Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016. However, the roots of this attack on the American system extend beyond the climactic moment after Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death. Five Republican-appointed Supreme Court members in 2010 obliterated the limits on campaign donations from corporations and individuals, a move that has led to a dramatic inflow of big money into politics, undermining the principle of one-person, one-vote. In 2018, once again, a 5-member bloc on the court comprised solely of Republican appointees upheld the aforementioned Ohio voter roll law and refused to strike down partisan gerrymandering, both of which are detrimental to the principles Americans hold dear.
None of these policies and actions are or were popular among a majority of the American electorate. A significant body of Republicans would also find them reprehensible. Additionally, none of the stated bases for their enactment have any form of support in social science research. Voter fraud is unambiguously a non-issue, immigrants have a lower propensity to commit crime than citizens, allowing transgender individuals to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with does not lead to upticks in sex crimes, and gerrymandering continues to prevent representative democracy from being truly representative. However, the Republican party continues to tread over norms and institutions as recklessly as an elephant—unironically the party’s mascot—in a china shop.
The 2018 elections are therefore the most important in two generations because we Americans must reaffirm our commitment to the principles that make us American. We can vigorously debate the merits of certain policies—I happen to disagree with many other Republican proposals. However, what is important is that we maintain the ability to debate and voice our displeasure to those in power. What is important is that we expand the table of America to all who share our commitment to such principles. And what is important is that we reject divisive and unpopular rhetoric and policymaking. The only choice we have to reaffirm our democratic, inclusionary principles is to vote out those who seek to force the country further down this dark path.
Eli Morton, class of 2021, is a member of Gettysburg College Democrats.