Some good news for American Democracy? (Times op-ed)

The Republican Party inflicted one of the worst electoral catastrophes in our history on itself last month and in the process spared our constitutional democracy to live another day. I can hear you already, “But they won the House.” Sorry, with all the headwinds (first off-year election, president’s approval numbers, inflation, “right track/wrong track,” and so many other issues), this year was ripe for a 50-70 seat GOP pickup in the House, a 2-5 vote advantage in the Senate, and a pickup of even more statehouses and legislatures. Instead, the party came away with a bare majority in the House; losses of vital governor, secretary of state, and state attorney general jobs, losses of state legislatures, including, apparently, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; and another Democratic majority in the US Senate. As Mitch McConnell said, candidate quality counts.

And in the process, virtually all the candidates who still subscribed to the nonsense about a stolen 2020 election went down to well-deserved defeat. And in a refreshing change, most of them admitted they had been defeated. Just imagine how different the country would be right now if Trump had admitted before Thanksgiving Day 2020 what he and every member of his family and campaign knew: that Biden had won. No Jan. 6, no Jan. 6 committee, and no trials. No Giuliani, Mike Flynn, and My Pillow guy. After spending two years as the loyal (or disruptive) opposition without the “stop the steal” insanity, the GOP probably would have won a resounding victory last month and Trump would be on his way to 2024 coronation. Instead, Mike Lindel is a candidate for RNC chair?

So, does this mean “democracy survived?” Not by a longshot. Sure, most of the people who promised they would rig things so efficiently that “the Republicans will never lose another election in this state” were consigned to well-deserved defeat. And the party finally seems to be recognizing that Trump is not just a catastrophe for the country, but for the Republican Party as well. But who is their replacement for Trump? A Florida governor who is if anything more of a reactionary and who seems to share Trump’s vision that government’s main purposes are to wage culture wars and exact revenge on political enemies.

We are still living with a Republican Party that cannot accept defeat. We are living with spectacles like the recent circus during the Maricopa County certification – or Cochise County’s refusal to certify THEIR votes because they do not like what Maricopa County did.

We are just as divided, with both parties claiming to believe the other is an existential threat to democracy. The Democrat’s fear is well-founded, since extinguishing our democracy is in effect the Republican Party platform. Trump’s attempted theft of the election, the numerous candidates who promised they would never allow the Democrats to win, these things happened in plain sight. The Republicans’ articulation of the same belief is, well, a little more of a stretch. You know, the socialist takeover of … forgiving student debt. Healthcare for Americans, worse than slavery. Hitler tactics like . . . price controls on insulin, universal child care, Medicare drug price negotiation. History teachers wanting to teach that Jim Crow was bad. I can feel my freedoms eroding one by one. Part of the problem is that Republican elected officials have become totally comfortable pretending to believe – or smiling and winking at – complete nonsense like FEMA camps, UN takeovers, the murder of Vince Foster, the non-existent ‘stand-down order,’ Comet ping pong, “federal takeovers” of health care, the Seth Rich conspiracy, “open borders,” replacement theory, that now the 30% bitter enders are conditioned to believe anything.

And their plans for their new power in Washington? Surely, after campaigning all year about Biden’s mishandling of inflation, crime, and the southern border, surely the new House majority will be laser focused on solving these critical issues. No, when given a share of the power, their plan to fix inflation or crime turns out to be of no more substance than the long ago “repeal and replace Obamacare,” that is, nothing at all. The party that for the first time in our history presented no platform at all in 2020, still has not made any progress and instead promises a diet of show trials like Hunter Biden’s laptop, Dr. Fauci and the start of the pandemic, impeaching the Secretary of Homeland Security, and more election nullification.

American democracy needs a thriving system of checks and balances, which was nearly destroyed by 2020 and is on the road to repair. It also needs two thriving political parties who present voters with two alternative visions of the future, contend for their votes, and then participate between elections in the governance of this country. We have not had that since Donald Trump took the party into the thickets of nullification and sedition.

Leon Reed is a retired senate aide and history teacher who researches and writes about the previous (1861) secession crisis. He is co-chair of Gettysburg DFA. The opinions are his own.