A Year from Now, The World

We have 365 Days to Save American Democracy (No Pressure)

Yes, this is one of 458 pieces you’ll read today about how we’re one year from Election Day 2024. That’s right, 365 sunsets from now, we’ll know the future of the country, and perhaps the world in our time, at least. To warm up in Nuke Laloosh fashion, let’s practice our political cliches:

·      A year is a lifetime in politics. Day, week, month are acceptable, too.

·      It’s a marathon not a sprint.

·      We’re gonna take it one game at a time, and the good Lord willing it will all work out.

·      The only poll that matters is on Election Day.

·      It all comes down to turnout.

·      When tired, the answer isn’t to quit, but to rest.

·      Kitchen table issues will decide this election.

·      Voters don’t like negative advertising. (Ha!)

I missed a lot. Put your favorite(s) in the comments.

Now that you’ve had the sugar, it’s time for the medicine.

Today, The New York Times is out with a new survey of battleground states. The Times assumes (as you should – more later) that next year will feature a rematch between President Joe Biden and multiple-indictee Donald Trump. In five of six states, Trump leads Biden (Wisconsin being the exception.)

These are tough numbers, no doubt about it. Let’s dispense with the complaining about President Biden not getting the credit he deserves. Let’s agree that Donald Trump is a soon-to-be-felon who encourages violence, whose incompetence is eclipsed only by his corruption. These are givens.

A quick historical review reminds us that first term presidents usually find their trough of support in year three. Americans are fickle, short-sighted, and have the collective memory of a goldfish. We should remind ourselves, too, that Joe Biden isn’t just up against Donald Trump, but a collection of ne’er do well candidates like Robert Kennedy, Jr, Dean #DeanQuixiote Phillips, Cornel West, and a slate of Republican primary candidates who have approximately the same chance of the becoming the GOP nominee as I do. To a person, they’re all criticizing Biden daily, some putting money behind their attacks.

Adding to that demented chorus’s noise is MAGA’s 24/7 efficient, and effective propaganda machine. Do not sleep on this. As my Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson has noted for years, right-wing media is now the normative force in American political information. What starts on Fox News will make its way to the mainstream. No matter how insane the charge, otherwise normal outlets will cover it. Just this morning, CNN had an interview with Congressman George Santos (if that’s his real name) after surviving an expulsion attempt in the US House. Why?

Now, gentle reader, let us look in the mirror. We’ve been blanketed with news that we want neither Biden nor Trump back in 2024. Too bad. How many times in life do we get two perfect choices? Never. How often in life do we get two flawed choices, if any at all? All the time. That’s not even what we face today!

Joe Biden, age accepted, is a good president, a very good president, by any objective historical standard. Perhaps most importantly, he wants to save, preserve, and expand American democracy. Even if you’re not a Democrat (I am not) you should want the Chief Executive to like the concept of Americans making decisions for their own reasons and for their own benefit.

The alternative? Trump? Really? He’s already engineered a coup attempt. As Simon Rosenberg said to me on the Lincoln Project Podcast, if Trump and the GOP believe January 6^th was an acceptable action, why should we believe they’re not willing to cross that line again? They will.

Next year will be unlike anything we’ve seen before. If you believe we’ve seen the worst of what Donald Trump can say or do, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. His brain will melt (such as it is) as he sits in four separate courtrooms watching his lackies point their fingers in his direction and say, “He did it. Donald J. Trump told me to do it.”

In the last century, democracies seldom died at the barrel of a rifle. They disappear because the apathy of their citizens creates a vacuum for very bad people to do very bad things. Germany’s demise in the 1930s was because “Good Germans” believed in the false choice between fascism and communism. The conservative establishment, believing they could control Adolf Hitler, went along with it: The 20^th century version of “What’s the downside in humoring him?”

In 1930s France, too, we saw political institutions crumble under the weight of far-right violence, moderate moderation, and liberal fecklessness. When the time came, as William L. Shrirer wrote, it was no surprise that German panzers rolled over the French countryside and into the streets of Paris in just six weeks.

Okay, enough syrup of ipecac. Let’s get to work.

Let’s define who we are. The pro-democracy coalition stretches from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Liz Cheney. That spectrum, regardless of its policy differences, believes that democracy means that voters choose our leaders, that political parties and candidates must accept defeat as part of the bargain, and that political violence must be denounced, always and forever.

Today’s Republican Party does not qualify as a pro-democracy political party. As Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt write in Tyranny of the Minority, the GOP has become an undemocratic force. They will stop at nothing to retain, or regain power, for their own purposes. Means and ends no longer matter.

Pro-democratic forces need a refresher course on what it means to fight as a coalition. In 2020 we came together in ad hoc fashion. In 2022, we had a better working relationship. The next 365 days will be our most difficult and important test. Working across party and ideological lines does not mean agreeing on everything. It means we agree on ONE thing: For American democracy to continue, Donald Trump must be defeated – badly – a year hence.

It also means we each understand our role to play. Our leader in this fight is President Joe Biden. Again, we don’t have to agree on every action, policy position, or statement he makes. It means we agree that he is the ONLY choice we have when it comes to preserving and expanding the American experiment.

Shoulder insignia of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) commanded by General Dwight Eisenhower that helped defeat Germany in World War 2.

Next, who does what? The president’s reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the constellation of pro-Biden/pro-Democratic super PACs must begin deploying their significant financial and organizational assets NOW. After nearly four years fighting alongside our Democratic allies, I know their instincts are to test every message to the point of being blander than tapioca. I know they believe late money is better than early money.

Friends, go against your instincts. Running the political equivalent of a prevent defense when we’re already behind will leave the president only further weakened three, six, nine months from now. With the resources these groups can marshal, they must be ready and willing to take risks.

Hoping that American voters will see the world as we do is not a strategy. Believing that our opponents are too stupid to win again is the height of arrogance and blindness. Those that would destroy American democracy are smart, well-resourced, and relentless. Act accordingly.

Those of us who left the GOP when Trump took over have our own work to do. We know how to speak to those Republicans who want nothing more to do with MAGA. Perhaps these voters, and I believe there are more of them now than ever before, aren’t huge fans of Joe Biden. Fine. If we can convince them, as we did in ’20 and ’22 to cross the line for a Democrat, terrific.

If not, we should encourage them to leave Trump off their ballot. Undervotes in places like Wisconsin and Georgia cost Trump the 2020 election. We call it “Flip it or Skip It.” A flip is two votes in the right direction. A skip is one vote for democracy. I’ll take either one.

The #NeverTrump coalition, has, can, and will continue to do our part to ensure American democracy continues. Not because we want to save the Republican Party, but precisely because we know it can’t be saved or rebuilt in its current form. Only when Trump and #MAGA are thoroughly excised from American political life, can any of us talk about what comes next.

What comes next is key to the whole ballgame. Defeating Donald Trump next year won’t cure all that ails us. If we can help deliver a crushing defeat of MAGA and the danger it poses will open the path to the end of the beginning of the Trumposene era. Trump’s poison has seeped all the way through. We will need perhaps another decade post-2024 to cleanse the system of his infection.

It all begins with victory 365 days from today. As you watch football, rake the yard, take your kids out, ask yourself what you’ll to be your own bullhorn. I think about it everyday, and I always find something else I can do. We don’t need you to do EVERYTHING. We need you to do ONE thing. What will it be?