The ‘24 GOP primary battle is heating up.
Trump’s in. DeSantis is all but in. Others like Haley and Pompeo look like they’ll be in soon. And now we have the latest twist that the Koch Brothers say they will support someone other than Trump.
My gut is that the legal/criminal inquiries into Trump pose the far greater threat to his candidacy than any of these candidates. Trump’s strength is appealing to his base on the big stage…and I don’t see any of the crop of potential candidates (and DeSantis in particular) possessing the personal skills to stand up to Trump in front of that audience.
Whatever happens, the Trump vs non-Trump frame that is emerging makes this a good time to remind ourselves of the breadth and history of the attack on democracy America is enduring. Here’s a quick back-of-the-notebook summary:
2008: Obama wins, triggering fierce backlash
2011: GOP statehouses engage in the most aggressive gerrymandering in modern history, along with intense voter suppression (aimed squarely at the Obama coalition). A fever pitch of extremism builds in these states ever since
2013: the Supreme Court decides Shelby County, gutting the Voting Rights Act and unleashing a second round of voter suppression in Southern states that would’ve been disallowed by the VRA protections eliminated by Shelby County
2016: we see an early version of election denialism (and echoes of Jim Crow), with the North Carolina legislature aggressively stripping power from the new Governor within days of Democratic Roy Cooper winning—a direct defiance of the will of the people
2018: similar power-stripping moves are attempted in Wisconsin and Michigan; we also begin to see various legislatures ignore the result of referenda directly passed by voters of their states
Post-2020: another round of voter suppression, gerrymandering, the ignoring of voters’ will via referenda, defiance of court orders and constitutions, and far more intense election denialism.
Now: growing political violence; censorship, etc.
Needless to say, this is a rough snapshot, but enough to make my point: the attack on democracy began long before Trump announced he was running in June 2015. It has largely taken place at levels of government where he wasn’t involved, propped up by an infrastructure funded by many, including some who don’t like Trump (eg. the Koch Bros). And it has all continued at all those levels since he lost
Trump made things worse, no doubt. And he has become the face of so much of what ails us.
But the roots and expanse of what we’re seeing run far deeper and broader than Trump. They were planted and bearing fruit before he showed up…they will remain in place after he has left the scene.
The danger of equating the attack of democracy to Trump and Trumpism is that it blinds us to this stark reality, which keeps us from seeing let alone comprehensively addressing the threat. And the overly narrow lens also provides “cover” for a whole lot of politicians who may not sound or act like Trump, but who too are engaged in attacks on basic principles of a functioning democracy .
So in sizing up potential leaders going forward, our test should not be where they stand vis a vis Trump, but where they stand (and have stood) when it comes to democracy itself.
Not long ago, that would’ve actually been a pretty low bar. These days, I’m afraid, most of the candidates trying to replace him won’t meet it.
