Democracy is on the Ballot in 2022

TapTheForwardAssist, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Abortion is on the ballot in 2022. Gas prices are on the ballot in 2022. Everything you care about and hold dear is on the ballot in 2022 because democracy is on the ballot in 2022. The truth is that our ability to get our desired outcome on these issues and more is contingent upon our remaing a democracy. The beauty of our system is that we can have a contest of ideas until the best ideas win out. If we get it wrong the first time, well with enough time and organizing we can revisit the issue and get it right the next time. Just look at what happened with the gun safety bill. It took us awhile, but we got there.

If the January 6th hearings have made anything abundantly clear it’s that this entire system is under threat. This means that our ability to have our voices heard and a government responsive to our needs is also under threat. That may sound alarmist but it’s not hyperbole.

So here’s how you should condition your vote in 2022: everyone running for office should be asked one simple question: is Joe Biden the duly elected President of the United States? If they don’t answer unequivocally, yes – if they dither and try to avoid the subject, or if they outright say no, they do not deserve your vote, because here’s the deal: even if you believe there was massive fraud in the 2020 election – despite loads of evidence to the contrary – the fact is that the Trump campaign failed to make it’s case: in the courts, to investigators, to election officials, even to their own Justice Department. The process played out under the rules established before the election and the former President failed. That’s how our system works. That’s how law and order works. The president exhausted all of his legal options and he failed.

What all of this means is that means Joe Biden is the duly elected President of the United States, just like someone who’s found not guilty can not legally be considered a felon, no matter how much you think they committed the crime. You don’t get to lock them up in your basement because you think they belong in jail. All the attempts to pressure election officials, the Justice Department, and even his own Vice President – to break their oaths to the Constitution and overturn the election results – that was the equivalent of locking someone up in your basement (which you didn’t need to do in 2020 because Biden locked himself in his basement?. Had Trump succeeded we would have had a Constitutional crisis on our hands because we would have had a President in power not duly elected under the laws set forth in the Constitution.

So, again, the law is clear. We elect our leaders based on rules set forth BEFORE the election and we agree upon a process to settle any and all election-related disputes BEFORE the election. Once that process plays out, that is the end of the line. Going outside that system is an attack on the very foundation of our democracy, and any candidate who refuses to acknowledge that simple fact has a squishy relationship with democracy and does not deserve your vote. I know it’s hard to focus on something so esoteric when there are so many other concerns front and center, but democracy is THE issue in 2022.

Our system, where people elect their leaders and then hold them accountable for their actions while in office, has worked for over 200 years. If we lose that we lose everything. Democracy is on the ballot in 2022. Vote accordingly.

The Biden Theory of the Case

It’s easy to get lost in the minutia of day to day politics but I really think people are missing the forest for the trees. In the grand scheme of things Biden’s little spat with Manchin and Build Back Better isn’t really going to matter. The bill will pass and disappointment about what gets left on the cutting room floor will inevitably fade and give way to excitement about what IS in the bill. Think about the argument we’re having right now: Do we want universal pre-k or or a universal child allowance? Should we make the largest investment ever in combatting climate change or the largest expansion of affordable healthcare in a over a decade? Or maybe we should focus on the greatest expansion of civil rights and voting rights since 1965? These are not bad problems to have.

I just don’t buy all the punditry saying Joe Biden misread his mandate or made a mistake by going too bold and now people are inevitably going to be dissapointed. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback but let’s game out some other scenerios. Biden ran on a bold, progressive platform. What would have happened if he said, “Never mind. I only got 50 votes in the Senate, so all that stuff I said I was gonna do – I’m not even going to try.” He would have had a progressive revolt and thrown away any chance of doing anything. Biden has a difficult task before him – keeping the disparate factions of the Democratic party together and united behind his agenda – and in my opinion (Manchin spat aside) he’s done so masterfully.

I just finished reading Evan Osnos’ biography of Joe Biden (you can thank my long layover in Texas for that). I highly reccommend it. It really helps you understand what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. Here’s the Biden theory of the case: the only way to save our democracy is to prove that a democratically elected government can deliver results for people. Put another way, the only way to defeat Trumpism is to show Trump’s supporters that their voices are being heard and that they don’t have to turn to someone like Trump to get a government responsive to their problems. That’s why Biden’s been so singularly focused on Build Back Better. It’s why he’s billed the infrastructure bill a “blue collar blueprint to rebuild America.” And it’s working. Wage growth for those without a college degree has outpaced wage growth for those with a degree since January 2021 – the longest period on record.

The bad actors are going to act bad – that’s what they do – the only thing we can do is make the outrage they’re peddling less appealing. Remember: the outrage machine only amplifies anger and resentment, but there has to be an existing base of anger and resentment for it to amplify, and though you’re never going to remove all the things that make people angry or upset, you can reduce it to a level that is sustainable. Just like how reducing transmission of the virus allows society to function normally, reducing anger and resentment to a sustainable level will allow democracy to function. The only way out is through helping people, not punishing them.

Of course governing effectively is only one piece of the puzzle. There’s an important second piece too. If making the bad actors less appealing is step one, reforming democracy to shore up the weaknesses exposed by the bad actors is step two. Biden has gotten a lot of flack (including from me) for not paying enough attention to voting rights. Bad actors all across the country are using the “Big Lie” as an excuse to pass restrictions that make it harder to vote, and they’re likely to continue in 2022. Passing both the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will push back against these state level restrictions and also put an end to gerrymandering, which causes increased polarization by making elections less and less competitive.

In order to pass both of these bills we will need to reform the filibuster – though filibuster reform shouldn’t be thought of as a means to an end, rather, reforming the filibuster is itself essential to saving our democracy. The fact is that one of the reasons people no longer believe democracies can deliver is because whichever party is out of power does their damnest to make sure the party in power can’t get anything done. Giving the minority a blanket veto over the majority’s agenda is insane and runs counter to the way our democracy was designed. Fixing the filibuster will allow our government to function as intended and be more responsive to the needs of it’s people – instead of our current state of affairs where politicians make big promises on the campaign trail that are impossible for them to fullfill once in office.

Finally, we need to update the Electoral Count Act to clarify the Vice President’s role in the counting of electoral votes and also what constitutes grounds for challenging a state’s votes. It’s unclear at this point whether this is something Democrats will have to do on their own or whether there’s enough establishment Republicans (I’m looking at you Mitt Romney) to pass a filibuster proof bipartisan bill. Obviously for big changes like this you’d prefer it to be bipartisan but if going it alone is the only way then that’s the route Democrats must take. This is just too important. Besides, both the 14th and 15th Amendment, which gave citizenship and voting rights to freed-slaves, passed on party-line votes.

Biden has not paid nearly enough attention to voting and democracy reform in the first year of his presidency but it looks like that is starting to change – a very welcome sign for those of us worried about the future of democracy.

Biden has a great task ahead of him: literally saving American democracy. But if he can pass Build Back Better, voting rights and election reform, on top of the infrastructure and COVID relief bills he’s already passed, that would go a long way towards meeting his goal of proving democracies can function. It would also safeguard our democracy against future attacks. I don’t know if it will save Democrats in the midterms but I would still call it a success – and though this has been said about every President, I think it’s the case now more than ever: Biden’s success is America’s success.

How to (Actually) Steal the Next Election

I used to be of the mind-set that the threat of Republicans stealing the next election was overstated. After all, the system held in 2020. All of the Republicans in charge of our elections, the ones who could actually do something to overturn the results, stood up to the pressure and did their jobs admirably. The people most vocally supporting the “Big Lie” were exactly the ones who had no power to actually do anything about it. I’m sure that was not a coincidence. But with the former President telling people he’s going to be “reinstated” by August (no, that’s not a thing), and Michael Flynn openly advocating for a violent coup, plus some of the Trumpiest Republicans, like representative Jody Hice (R-GA), running to replace the Republicans who stood up to Trump, like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, we might not get so lucky next time.

Now normally I’d say to just ignore the crazies, but it’s not just the crazies. Senate Republicans voted last week to block a bipartisan commission to look into the January 6th insurrection, and GOP state lawmakers in states across the country are pushing bills giving themselves more power over election officials, and allowing courts to more easily overturn election results. Republicans are amassing the kind of power they would need to overturn the next election and they seem like they just might have the appetite to do it. Simply put, the people promoting the next “Big Lie” might actually have the power to do something about it.

The slide to autocracy doesn’t happen overnight, and nobody announces that it’s coming. It happens gradually, under the guise of “law and order” and “election integrity.” It happens when nobody is watching. When people let their guards down, and more often than not, you don’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late. So it’s worth taking a look at what that slide might look like.

First, let’s assume there isn’t going to be a violent coup that reinstates the former President by August. I hope that’s a safe assumption. That brings us to 2024. For simplicity sake, let’s say that 2024 will be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and that the vote will be exactly the same as in 2020, i.e. Joe Biden wins the same states by the exact same amount which, using the new allocation of electoral votes, would produce the following map.

270towin.com

A clear Biden victory, or so we thought. This time Republicans control the House and Senate. As I said earlier, nobody announces they’re ending democracy, Republicans aren’t going to just say, “Hey, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania but we’re going to go ahead give it to Trump anyway.” But what happens if we’re in another situation where Repubicans are upset about changes made to Pennsylvania’s election law, or false claims of fraud in Philadelphia, and they decide that the results can’t be trusted? They could essentially say, “we don’t know who won Pennsylvania. It’s impossible to know! Therefore, we should throw out the results!” For a refresher (sorry if you’re getting flashbacks) if a Senator and Representative sign an objection to the electors from any state, the Senate and House each go back to their respective chambers for two hours of debate before voting on whether to accept or reject the electors. A majority of both chambers must vote to uphold the objection. This time though, Republicans control both chambers, so in this instance they vote to reject Pennsylvania’s electors. Now let’s assume the same thing happens with Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan, all of which Biden won by less than 3 points in 2020. All tainted by fraud! The results can’t be trusted! Donald Trump has just won the election 235-226.

270towin.com

Remember, the winner only needs to recieve the majority of the electoral votes that are actually counted, normally that’s 270 but because in this scenerio Congress has rejected 79 electoral votes from 6 states, Donald Trump can win with only 235.

With the firehose of falsehoods we saw after the last election and the sizeable segment of the population that still believes the false narrative that the election was stolen, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Congressional Republicans, under considerable pressure from Trump and his allies, would overturn the results in 2024 and throw the election to Trump. And with Republicans well positioned to take back the House in 2022, and the Senate in 2024, it’s fairly likely that they will find themselves in the position where they have to make a choice: Donald Trump or democracy? Do you trust them to choose wisely?