I think the core problem here is fairly simple: while most of the elected officials are smart enough to know this is not true, from top to bottom the entire campaign staffs continue, hope against hope, to earnestly believe the Great Turnout Myth. The only reason Joe Manchin wins by such narrow margins in WV is because he doesn't propose the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, UBI, etc.
Mandela Barnes is getting hammered by the execrable Ron Johnson in Wisconsin for being "not just another Democrat, but a radical, dangerous Democrat", and what does his campaign do? Fly in fucking Liz Warren.
A similar phenomenon is happening with Stacey Abrams. I think the four years of constant fawning have gotten to her. A few months ago, she literally said "Georgia is the worst state." In a recent debate, she walked into a trap by Brian Kemp and insulted sheriffs. She came out strong for reparations recently, which may be good on the merits, but isn't doing anything to win her votes. It's a disaster and I don't think people outside of Georgia have taken notice.
My memory of 2018 is she had a primary against a white moderate Dem, and Abrams won the primary by convincing moderates she was a mainstream candidate who could win. I agree entirely that the fawning got to her. She is now completely insufferable. I’d be a Kemp-Warnock voter in GA.
As a GA voter, I remember her 2018 campaign being pretty much the opposite of that! In the primary she very explicitly said Democrats need to stop trying to win over suburban Atlanta voters because it will never happen. And then two years later we flipped Georgia by winning over suburban Atlanta voters.
Barnes is such a disaster as a candidate. People outside of Wisconsin or those who are not closely following the race have no idea. New Marquette Law School poll that just came out today has Johnson up 7 POINTS with independents. In August Barnes was up 15 points with independents.
It’s Warren, Sanders, the Russian TV appearance, the abortion with no limits, anti American comments, anti Israel comments, his Twitter feed and who knows what else at this point.
As a native Minnesotan, the only way I can explain Barnes’s campaign is that he has never left Madison/Milwaukee city limits in his life. Milwaukee is a metro where even wealthy educated suburbs are still basically conservative! Just electoral malpractice to run a campaign this way in a red-leaning culturally conservative swing state.
Barnesmentum is muted even in Madison proper, if you'll believe that.
I gave his campaign fifty bucks a few months ago and, as near as I can tell, they've spent every blue cent of it calling/texting/emailing me asking for more money.
That does surprise me a bit! It’s also muted in left learning areas of the Milwaukee suburbs but those areas are not anywhere as close to Madison in their makeup. Lots of houses with an Evers sign and no Barnes sign here which is unusual.
100% agree. I grew up in the Milwaukee suburbs and I now live in a more blue suburban area in Milwaukee than where I grew up and I don’t sense a whole lot of excitement for Barnes. There is a huge difference between the Madison/ Milwaukee Democrats and the Milwaukee suburban ones and he has failed miserably at closing that gap.
I’ve never understood the argument that our democracy is under threat. Yes what Trump in late 2020 was very wrong. He absolutely shouldn’t have done it and should be condemned for his actions.
But… it didn’t work. He wasn’t even close to succeeding in overturning the 2020 election results. It’s not a sign of democracy failing that Trump attempted this. It’s a sign of democracy WORKING that Trump was blocked at every turn.
That’s the whole point. We always expect bad actors. The test of a system is your ability to repel the bad actors. And in that arena democracy in America is just as amazing and robust as it always has been.
It's true that in 2020/2021 every entity in a position to mess with the election (courts, relevant governors, state legislatures, and secretaries of state, even county level election boards) all refused to help Trump. I believe that much of this was sincere, the courts especially take themselves very seriously and won't bend the law. But I also worry that if Trump needed to overturn one state, rather than three, we might have seen more bad actors.
Now that election denialism is becoming more mainstream in the Republican party, I worry that we'll see more bad behavior from elected Republicans. Maybe Biden wins Arizona narrowly, and the state legislature decides that election results from Phoenix have a fraudish vibe and give the state electors to Trump. To their mind they're not stealing the election, they're just stealing back their stuff, but they're still torching democracy and it would be a full blown constitutional crisis. County level actors can also cause trouble, there are lots of them and local pols are often weirdos. There was already an incident where Otero county NM refused to certify a primary because Dominion voting machines. If that had be a general election in a close state, it would have been a much bigger deal, even if the clowns were eventually overruled.
Point is, the democracy won Round 1, but I worry about the next time.
I’m not worried about next time. Round 1 is the closest he will ever get. The system is more robust because now people aren’t going to be caught off guard by it.
I am not sure what recourse will exist if kooky Republican Secretaries of State simply refuse to certify their state's election. I would sleep a lot easier if I knew.
I mean, yes, if you posit Trump will not win the next election, then you can basically not worry. But your argument for being so confident in that position seems quite weak.
At the least, he remains very popular with a huge share of one of our two political parties. I'd love for T to lose the GOP primary - and he might - but asserting he will with confidence seems to me little more than wishful thinking.
If he is the GOP nominee, I don't see how his chances can be discounted. Either party's candidate always has a shot.
There are years a party's chances are dim because the other is a juggernaut positioned for a landslide; however, that hardly describe the Democratic Party today.
Again, insisting Pres. Biden is unbeatable for re-election would be pure fiction, not a belief supported by evidence.
I may be wrong. The odds are likely in your favor anyway (I hope). But I do not share your confidence and instead am quite worried - I hope needlessly, but I fear not...
The country did just fine under Trump for four years. Far as I’m concerned the only precedent so far is that these concerns are overblown, even if Trump does win.
I am very annoyed at Dems rhetoric around this and so very sympathetic to this position. That said, this is one of those things where fearing (or at least worrying) about a hypothetical is very reasonable, and we really shouldn't try to stress test the system intentionally to see how close to the crisis we can get (in other words, it is worth making sure that we keep as many safeguards as reasonable). I think of this similarly to nuclear war. Sure, arguably, we have never been very close to one (depending on what you consider "very close"), but we should still worry whether particular policies around nuclear weapons make it less or more likely that it happens, and reject polices that make it easier to launch.
Sure, Pence and pretty much every other Republican official with any actual power refused to go along with it -- that's great. But, it IS a concern what candidates for some of the same positions say about what they would do if such a situation occurred in the future. Leaving Pence aside (though, presumably he's not going to be Trump's VP next time, and so it is important to know if that person thinks that Pence was wrong), take all people running for Secretary of State. If any of them say that election was stolen, it makes it slightly more possible that they would try to interfere next time. They will probably fail, but having them try is already bad.
It is a very complex system that was just put to its very first test. Then we ultimately did nothing to change it. In my experience, it's very rare for complex systems to be optimally implemented on the very first try.
Attackers tend to see what didn't work and innovate with their new knowledge.
He didn't come close to succeeding in overturning the election, but he did come close to causing a giant mess. All Trump needed to do in order to cause the mess was to get Pence's buy-in on the electoral vote counting shenanigans. It wouldn't have worked, but it would have caused a ton more chaos along the way.
Ok but… Pence didn’t buy in. So we are talking about a hypothetical event that 1) didn’t happen, and 2) I wouldn’t assume it would have caused a ton more chaos.
By the time January 6th rolled around no one in any position of power was taking Trump’s claim seriously. It wasn’t just Pence declining, it was multiple justices, multiple state and local officials, and every major news source including Fox News. That’s my point. He wasn’t even close. And saying “well if it had played out this way…” is ultimately just hypothetical fearmongering
The condemnation isn’t coming, though. Many of these virtue signaling fools will be re-elected by the very people they are signaling to, the people that are encouraged by and further encourage this behavior going forward.
Josh’s point about bad messaging is valid, but your point implying that no one of consequence takes this seriously is unfounded. Even if all of those House members do not truly believe in the “Steal,” their public rhetoric associates them with the platform.
There’s no condemnation because democrats chose a bad platform to run on. Had they played to the center like they claimed they intended to, then there would have been the repercussion you desire.
This piece made me remember a number of months ago when Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were villified for sinking Biden's $3.4T BBB plan. Given inflation, it kinds seems like progressive Dems owe them an apology, right?
While I don't disagree with much of what you've said in your rant, and I am turned off by much of the leftward tilt of the Democratic party, I kind of do feel that there is only one choice of party to the extent that candidates on the Republican side continue to support the debunked election fraud hypothesis, and/or are already making noises about not honoring election results if they don't win (e.g. Kari Lake among others). If my choice is between someone like that and a Democrat, it's not a choice at all. My nightmare scenario is a choice between someone like that and a far left Democrat.
My earnest question is what good ideas do Republicans have now on anything? I get adjusting rhetoric to the median voter, but I think pretending like Republicans are at all serious about governing is also stupid. Honestly, wondering what is the last thing the Dems did that Josh didn't think was a total disaster. Are there any Dem politicians he likes (other than Jared Polis - who definitely is great!)?
I certainly don't think Dems have run a perfect campaign, particularly in regards to kitchen table issues like inflation. I also think the Republican party is an unserious joke, and while many millions of people support it, it's OK to acknowledge that.
The democracy thing is tough because it IS REALLY IMPORTANT but people just don't care about it. I hope Josh and Yglesias are right that the threat to democracy is overblown, I will happily eat crow. That being said, I live in suburban Wisconsin and Wisconsin has been gerrymandered into a near permanent GOP majority in the state legislature. I don't want to see similar situations play out in other purple states!
Fellow suburban Wisconsin resident and I agree. The Wisconsin gerrymandering is bad. I actually think it might help Evers in a weird way because so many people don’t want the Michels regimes running the show and he’s just a a bad as a candidate as Barnes for for different reasons. I’ve definitely got my disagreements with Evers but if he wins and literally does nothing that’s better than the alternative and I hope people see that. For non Wisconsin people, Evers makes Biden look like a really exciting candidate and I don’t think that’s an overstatement.
Democracy is THE MOST important issue by far. But it’s so far down on the list polls are not even listing it as an issue. That being said I’m really bothered by the DCCC funding Republicans to get an easier matchup. Hope to God that doesn’t backfire on them.
What ideas do Republicans have? That restricting fossil fuel supply - particularly of oil & gas in the United States - will cause prices to rise. That will suck for many Americans while doing little or nothing to curb global warming.
To the contrary, the U.S. is one of the few countries with meaningful emissions on pace to meet its Paris targets thanks to increased natural gas production from hydraulic fracturing finally toppling King Coal. We should be encouraging that substitution all over the world. Instead, many countries are reverting back to coal, an ecological disaster
Increasing production also has important knock-off benefits. Cheap energy is a backbone of U.S. industrial capitalism. And that - both the decent blue collar jobs it produces, and the opportunities it provides folks with less formal education to form their own rental or supply LLC and try to make their own score - is basically the only recipe we know for improving the lot of vast swaths of the population.
Not that the Dem alternative of "We'll increase the minimum wage you're paid to debase yourself serving young rich a-holes you neither like nor respect - delivering stuff to them, or driving them around, walking their dogs, being their gardener, whatever" is not attractive. But I don't think the Hispanic and other proud/ambitious dudes who reject that for a shot at earning real money - and maybe more - in industries based or reliant on fossil fuel extraction and cheap energy are irrational...
Come to Wisconsin and that’s what you get in the Senate race! It’s nutcase Ron Johnson (no explanation needed) versus Mandela Barnes who was happy to accept an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America and has a Twitter feed full of far left comments.
I feel like my strategy for this race would be to pull the lever for Barnes and then drink several shots of whiskey to get over the pain of having done it. I’m not excited about Hochul-Zeldin in NY state but at least Hochul is basically sane if uninspiring (I think she is more moderate/practical than she lets on, but chooses her battles against the completely insane far-left state legislature)
I think Barnes is a pretty bad candidate but he’s infinite orders of magnitude better than Ron Johnson. Johnson is an embarrassment that unfortunately will likely win yet again.
I mean as a physician who understands how vaccines work, I am definitely familiar with his antivax nonsense! Just remarkably stupid and credulous. Unlike DeSantis who is cynical but not stupid, Johnson seems like he’s actually dumb enough to believe this stuff.
Still would take some whisky with the Barnes vote but that’s better than the paint thinner I’d need to stomach a Johnson vote
I honestly can’t decide if Johnson is as stupid as he plays on TV. My inclination is that he isn’t stupid at all but has complete contempt for his constituents and thinks they are stupid. He essentially is in the vanguard of the GOP’s “all that really matters is owning the libs” movement. His ads are all about the culture war and linking Dems to riots. He wants rural WI residents to believe that Milwaukee and Kenosha no longer exist after being destroyed by trans BLM furries.
Having met and spoken with him several times as part of my former job, he isn't stupid. Erratic, sometimes nasty, unfocused, yes, but not stupid. Although my last meeting with him was 5+ years ago, and it does seem he's gone down the rabbit hole since then...
The number of ads and the type and tone of them is just relentless. And the fact it’s four, five, six of them in a row. If I never have to see another one on tv or stuffed in my mailbox again I’d be happy.
Johnson is not dumb to your excellent point he knows exactly what he’s doing. For all of Johnson’s faults and that’s very long list, he has (or someone has) run a better campaign than Barnes. He’s hammered down on crime and inflation and has not let up the entire time. I literally don’t think I’ve seen another type of ad from him, and it’s just one after the next over and over again. And that message really sells in large parts of the state.
I dare say you may need more than several shots. Maybe a whole bottle! It is Wisconsin after all!
And I can understand not being thrilled about Hochul. Our Governor’s race is similar except our Democratic governor doesn’t have to cater to the left wing of his party (thankfully) because the legislature is Republican. Since the Republican primary went to the Trump endorsed nutcase candidate who’s running a terrible campaign and the Democratic governor is acceptable to most he might be able to drag enough independents and anti Trump to get across the finish line.
1. Regarding Elevating Loonies. Indeed, the chance of winning election is not zero. FiveThirtyEight has Kari Lake in Arizona as a 2:1 favorite and has John Gibbs in MI-3 as only a slight underdog (45:55). Joe Kent appears to be heading towards an easy win in WA-3 after toppling Herrera-Beutler in the primary (although tbf, I'm not aware of Democratic PACs boosting Kent).
2. I think the manic behavior on Democratic side in regard to democracy is driven by a couple of factors. First is that the political energy in the Democratic coalition is on the progressive side (much as it is on the MAGA loony side for Republicans, although that seems to oscillate more at the given moment). So the Democrats are looking for their car keys under the street lamp where the light is good. Second is the David Shor problem. I think most politically active Democrats are aware that it is likely the Senate is going to be more biased against them in the near future based on demographics and population density. And the is causing them to be frenetic in strategy. On one side, they want to entrench as much policy as they can right now and potentially take steps to entrench their political power going forward (statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, push map drawing down to commissions where they have been successful in California is perpetrating gerrymandering through such commissions). On the other side, the want to try and appeal to a big-tent strategy on the issue of democracy and keeping election denying jackwads out of power. The former strategy undermines the latter.
Correct AFAIK that Kent was not one of the signal-boostees; assuming arguendo that grrr Pelosi et all wanted him in the WA-3 top two for similar logic to Gibbs in MI-3, Kent already had a sufficiently high profile that he had no need of any funding from the Ds, a situation unlike Gibbs or arguable Bolduc.
On a related ugly side of politics note, any theory why the national-level MAGA-ites did *not* try more effectively to take out Dan Newhouse? All they needed IMHO was to coordinate better on the the perfectly Trumpy Culp, who had the blessing of the Pope and came within less than 5% of second place. I understand why they left David Valadao alone (McCarthy told them to lay off on the grounds that Valadao was the only R who could keep the seat; I'm not sure McCarthy was right about that, but apparently that's the Straight Dope), but WA-4 is R+13, fer Ghu's sake. A Trumper could be caught with a dead girl and a live boy and still beat a Dem.
To the point that the D's, awful as they can be, are still more functional, if chaotic, than the Rs, to my knowledge Pelosi and Schumer took significant public flak from both the left and right wings of the party (e.g. AOC and Spanberger) and I'm not aware of any meaningful attempts to, err, cancel the critics (there are certainly plenty on the inside who consider Spanberger a heretic or DINO, but to my knowledge not over the free publicity to the loonies in the R primaries).
Too many MAGA cooks in the kitchen against Newhouse I suppose. I think we saw that in other races too where a MAGA person refused to get out of the race even though Trump endorsed someone else.
I'm not sure re MAGA cooks in the kitchen. I mean, yes, you are right in that the #3 finisher, Jerrod Sessler, was as MAGA as they come, and has more profile of a TRVE KVLT MAGA-head, as opposed to Culp who reads to me as being a bit more of an opportunist. I didn't follow the details like I did with Valadao.
But given that Newhouse, you know, voted to impeach, plus a few other lesser heresies like voting for the Jan 6 commission, voting for the RFMA, defeating a Tea Party darling in Newhouse's first and second elections (2014/2016), you would think he would have a much bigger target on his back and someone could have put pressure to drop out on either Sessler or the fourth place finisher, Klippert, who is kind of old school R but has an existing WA state Senate seat ("nice state legislative job you have there - be a shame if anything were to happen to it").
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I agree that the "save democracy" rhetoric does next to nothing to persuade voters. On the other hand, I believe that the rhetoric is pretty much 100% accurate on its substance. I don't have any good suggestions for how to campaign when one party is a genuine threat to American democracy and the electorate doesn't particularly care.
Meghan, great to see another WI suburbanite over here! I agree that Evers has the charisma of a Kwik Trip sandwich but I think that's kind of exactly what WI needed after the constant drama of Walker. I think a lot of Michels' attacks on Evers for how he handled Kenosha are in pretty bad faith. The dude mobilized the National Guard and sent them, what else is he supposed to do, grab a riot shield and enter the fray?
As for the DCCC, I am not a huge fan of it but I see it as everyday realpolitik and think the outrage over it is fairly contrived.
I will vote for Barnes but agree he's a subpar candidate. He's said too many dumb things in the past that should have come up in the primary but were ignored. Too bad because I think Ron Johnson is the most embarrassing WI elected official since McCarthy.
Anyways, here's to a brighter WI future! At least the Bucks are still good!
Agreed great to see another Wisconsinite over here. Evers is something else I’ll say that. The Kiel Trip sandwich might win that contest! But like I kind of oddly enjoy his boring nature. Barnes could learn some lessons from Evers on less is more on Twitter is not a bad thing!
Man this all just feels like the democrats are setting themselves up to blame someone else for an 11/8 loss, which will probably come down to low turnout. This party (and I guess the GOP too) is just incapable of learning lessons and is just going to double down on whatever nets the most fundraising wins. They'll cycle through a few more apparatchiks down there at the DNC HQ but new boss is old boss.
"Low turnout is definitionally good for Republicans" feels like it was last robustly supported in, I don't know, maybe 2014. Now it's just an axiomatic talking point.
Choosing election deniers is indeed a choice one has today -so democracy is still alive- but it sure feels like it could be the last choice you ever have if the maga crew wins and decides they'll only accept outcomes when they don't lose, hence eliminating choice and democracy.
I hear your frustrations, Josh, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on how Democratic candidates should talk about opponents who are literally saying that they either don't believe in democracy ("this is a republic, not a democracy") or that they will aggressively enact anti-democratic legislation such as voting restrictions or allowing their party to select presidential electors independently of the voting outcomes in their state. What is the right way to categorize this kind of behavior?
Josh what do you think of Wisconsin, where this antidemocratic future has already come to pass. Democrats really cannot win in the legislature even with more votes. And with supermajorities in the legislature, the state GOP do what they want.
Partly inspired by your previous post about Democrats' current woes, I wrote a post on my blog discussing my own thoughts on the matter. My biggest criticism is that while Biden has not encouraged domestic oil production, it has still gone up under him. Oil companies lost money in 2014 and 2020 and don't want to repeat that. Absent a guarantee of making a profit, they probably will not start drilling any time soon. In early 2021, gas prices were still low and trying to subsidize oil production would have been an impossible sell. The issue was not really on anyone's radar then. As for the ARP, there is plenty of debate as to how much inflation it caused. There doesn't seem to be any solid consensus. I am not taking a side on it, just pointing that out. Maybe without it growth would have been lower and unemployment higher. You also have to remember that in 2009 Democrats did not spend enough on stimulus measures and the economy suffered for it for years. Who was at the scene of the crime advising to spend the bare minimum? Larry Summers. That episode undoubtedly had a big effect on stimulus efforts in 2021. That doesn't let anyone pushing it off the hook, but this treating of Summers as a sage irritates me to no end given his terrible track record. Anyway, if you have time, please read what I wrote. I would greatly appreciate it.
On the economic front, do we still have a good sense of how much of inflation is driven simply by standard goods vs supply trends and supply chain issues vs how much is just corporate greed and general capitalism? We as Americans are generally consumers and we love convenience. The Times today had an article (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/business/food-prices-profits.html) explaining how corporations are definitely raising prices more than
On the energy front the Biden administration definitely hasn't been as friendly as previous administrations related to land leases, however most of us should know that oil is a global commodity and when you hear energy and consumer good companies making record profits in a time when most people are struggling its clear that something doesn't add up.
I do agree 100% though, that if the DNC really believed their "threats to democracy" rhetoric then they wouldn't have tried to elevate terrible candidates on the GOP side. I'd argue they'd also push for more electable people in winnable races. I'd also believe that they'd listen to what the electorate is saying about what their pain points are and addressing those pain points, such as peoples concerns about immigration, crime, energy costs or inflation.
That said, the modern loud GOP members have engaged in a lot of stochastic terrorism with their rhetoric, misinformation, and don't offer a plan either. It seems that unfortunately is enough for their voters though. I live in GA and there are people who want Walker to win even though he is a terrible candidate, simply because they want their team to win. I definitely think the "threats to democracy" are overblown, but I don't think the threats to women's rights, abortion rights, unions, teachers, climate change, voting rights, political violence, are not overblown.
I think the core problem here is fairly simple: while most of the elected officials are smart enough to know this is not true, from top to bottom the entire campaign staffs continue, hope against hope, to earnestly believe the Great Turnout Myth. The only reason Joe Manchin wins by such narrow margins in WV is because he doesn't propose the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, UBI, etc.
Mandela Barnes is getting hammered by the execrable Ron Johnson in Wisconsin for being "not just another Democrat, but a radical, dangerous Democrat", and what does his campaign do? Fly in fucking Liz Warren.
What can you say?
A similar phenomenon is happening with Stacey Abrams. I think the four years of constant fawning have gotten to her. A few months ago, she literally said "Georgia is the worst state." In a recent debate, she walked into a trap by Brian Kemp and insulted sheriffs. She came out strong for reparations recently, which may be good on the merits, but isn't doing anything to win her votes. It's a disaster and I don't think people outside of Georgia have taken notice.
My memory of 2018 is she had a primary against a white moderate Dem, and Abrams won the primary by convincing moderates she was a mainstream candidate who could win. I agree entirely that the fawning got to her. She is now completely insufferable. I’d be a Kemp-Warnock voter in GA.
As a GA voter, I remember her 2018 campaign being pretty much the opposite of that! In the primary she very explicitly said Democrats need to stop trying to win over suburban Atlanta voters because it will never happen. And then two years later we flipped Georgia by winning over suburban Atlanta voters.
You’re probably right! I only half paid attention when it was mentioned in a national media story
As a Georgia resident, I'm a Kemp-Warnock voter.
I have no patience for election deniers.
I just don’t remember the 2018 Democratic Primary being particularly hot. Stacey Abrams wasn’t well known at that point.
Barnes is such a disaster as a candidate. People outside of Wisconsin or those who are not closely following the race have no idea. New Marquette Law School poll that just came out today has Johnson up 7 POINTS with independents. In August Barnes was up 15 points with independents.
It’s Warren, Sanders, the Russian TV appearance, the abortion with no limits, anti American comments, anti Israel comments, his Twitter feed and who knows what else at this point.
He's also running an exceptionally cringey/needy/whiny campaign for some reason. Biggest primary-vote regret of my life.
Of course I'll vote for him on Tuesday, but the bridge of my nose will be sore for weeks.
As a native Minnesotan, the only way I can explain Barnes’s campaign is that he has never left Madison/Milwaukee city limits in his life. Milwaukee is a metro where even wealthy educated suburbs are still basically conservative! Just electoral malpractice to run a campaign this way in a red-leaning culturally conservative swing state.
Barnesmentum is muted even in Madison proper, if you'll believe that.
I gave his campaign fifty bucks a few months ago and, as near as I can tell, they've spent every blue cent of it calling/texting/emailing me asking for more money.
That does surprise me a bit! It’s also muted in left learning areas of the Milwaukee suburbs but those areas are not anywhere as close to Madison in their makeup. Lots of houses with an Evers sign and no Barnes sign here which is unusual.
100% agree. I grew up in the Milwaukee suburbs and I now live in a more blue suburban area in Milwaukee than where I grew up and I don’t sense a whole lot of excitement for Barnes. There is a huge difference between the Madison/ Milwaukee Democrats and the Milwaukee suburban ones and he has failed miserably at closing that gap.
I’ve never understood the argument that our democracy is under threat. Yes what Trump in late 2020 was very wrong. He absolutely shouldn’t have done it and should be condemned for his actions.
But… it didn’t work. He wasn’t even close to succeeding in overturning the 2020 election results. It’s not a sign of democracy failing that Trump attempted this. It’s a sign of democracy WORKING that Trump was blocked at every turn.
That’s the whole point. We always expect bad actors. The test of a system is your ability to repel the bad actors. And in that arena democracy in America is just as amazing and robust as it always has been.
It's true that in 2020/2021 every entity in a position to mess with the election (courts, relevant governors, state legislatures, and secretaries of state, even county level election boards) all refused to help Trump. I believe that much of this was sincere, the courts especially take themselves very seriously and won't bend the law. But I also worry that if Trump needed to overturn one state, rather than three, we might have seen more bad actors.
Now that election denialism is becoming more mainstream in the Republican party, I worry that we'll see more bad behavior from elected Republicans. Maybe Biden wins Arizona narrowly, and the state legislature decides that election results from Phoenix have a fraudish vibe and give the state electors to Trump. To their mind they're not stealing the election, they're just stealing back their stuff, but they're still torching democracy and it would be a full blown constitutional crisis. County level actors can also cause trouble, there are lots of them and local pols are often weirdos. There was already an incident where Otero county NM refused to certify a primary because Dominion voting machines. If that had be a general election in a close state, it would have been a much bigger deal, even if the clowns were eventually overruled.
Point is, the democracy won Round 1, but I worry about the next time.
I’m not worried about next time. Round 1 is the closest he will ever get. The system is more robust because now people aren’t going to be caught off guard by it.
I am not sure what recourse will exist if kooky Republican Secretaries of State simply refuse to certify their state's election. I would sleep a lot easier if I knew.
I’m pretty sure we are going to seat the winner of the presidential election regardless of whatever a random state secretary says.
I’m pretty sure our system is robust enough to handle one bureaucrat going rogue.
I mean, yes, if you posit Trump will not win the next election, then you can basically not worry. But your argument for being so confident in that position seems quite weak.
At the least, he remains very popular with a huge share of one of our two political parties. I'd love for T to lose the GOP primary - and he might - but asserting he will with confidence seems to me little more than wishful thinking.
If he is the GOP nominee, I don't see how his chances can be discounted. Either party's candidate always has a shot.
There are years a party's chances are dim because the other is a juggernaut positioned for a landslide; however, that hardly describe the Democratic Party today.
Again, insisting Pres. Biden is unbeatable for re-election would be pure fiction, not a belief supported by evidence.
I may be wrong. The odds are likely in your favor anyway (I hope). But I do not share your confidence and instead am quite worried - I hope needlessly, but I fear not...
The country did just fine under Trump for four years. Far as I’m concerned the only precedent so far is that these concerns are overblown, even if Trump does win.
I am very annoyed at Dems rhetoric around this and so very sympathetic to this position. That said, this is one of those things where fearing (or at least worrying) about a hypothetical is very reasonable, and we really shouldn't try to stress test the system intentionally to see how close to the crisis we can get (in other words, it is worth making sure that we keep as many safeguards as reasonable). I think of this similarly to nuclear war. Sure, arguably, we have never been very close to one (depending on what you consider "very close"), but we should still worry whether particular policies around nuclear weapons make it less or more likely that it happens, and reject polices that make it easier to launch.
Sure, Pence and pretty much every other Republican official with any actual power refused to go along with it -- that's great. But, it IS a concern what candidates for some of the same positions say about what they would do if such a situation occurred in the future. Leaving Pence aside (though, presumably he's not going to be Trump's VP next time, and so it is important to know if that person thinks that Pence was wrong), take all people running for Secretary of State. If any of them say that election was stolen, it makes it slightly more possible that they would try to interfere next time. They will probably fail, but having them try is already bad.
It is a very complex system that was just put to its very first test. Then we ultimately did nothing to change it. In my experience, it's very rare for complex systems to be optimally implemented on the very first try.
Attackers tend to see what didn't work and innovate with their new knowledge.
This take is the same as Sideshow Bob lamenting his time in prison for attempted murder:
"Attempted murder. Now honestly what is that? Can you win a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?"
He didn't come close to succeeding in overturning the election, but he did come close to causing a giant mess. All Trump needed to do in order to cause the mess was to get Pence's buy-in on the electoral vote counting shenanigans. It wouldn't have worked, but it would have caused a ton more chaos along the way.
Ok but… Pence didn’t buy in. So we are talking about a hypothetical event that 1) didn’t happen, and 2) I wouldn’t assume it would have caused a ton more chaos.
By the time January 6th rolled around no one in any position of power was taking Trump’s claim seriously. It wasn’t just Pence declining, it was multiple justices, multiple state and local officials, and every major news source including Fox News. That’s my point. He wasn’t even close. And saying “well if it had played out this way…” is ultimately just hypothetical fearmongering
140 plus members of the House questioned the results. Seems like someone in power took it seriously.
Not really. An inconsequential house vote by virtue signaling opportunists.
That’s not GOOD. And the Republicans who supported should be condemned for doing so.
But a threat to democracy? Not in the slightest.
The condemnation isn’t coming, though. Many of these virtue signaling fools will be re-elected by the very people they are signaling to, the people that are encouraged by and further encourage this behavior going forward.
Josh’s point about bad messaging is valid, but your point implying that no one of consequence takes this seriously is unfounded. Even if all of those House members do not truly believe in the “Steal,” their public rhetoric associates them with the platform.
There’s no condemnation because democrats chose a bad platform to run on. Had they played to the center like they claimed they intended to, then there would have been the repercussion you desire.
This piece made me remember a number of months ago when Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were villified for sinking Biden's $3.4T BBB plan. Given inflation, it kinds seems like progressive Dems owe them an apology, right?
Yeah Manchin has routinely pushed the administration in good directions on inflation and energy policy.
While I don't disagree with much of what you've said in your rant, and I am turned off by much of the leftward tilt of the Democratic party, I kind of do feel that there is only one choice of party to the extent that candidates on the Republican side continue to support the debunked election fraud hypothesis, and/or are already making noises about not honoring election results if they don't win (e.g. Kari Lake among others). If my choice is between someone like that and a Democrat, it's not a choice at all. My nightmare scenario is a choice between someone like that and a far left Democrat.
My earnest question is what good ideas do Republicans have now on anything? I get adjusting rhetoric to the median voter, but I think pretending like Republicans are at all serious about governing is also stupid. Honestly, wondering what is the last thing the Dems did that Josh didn't think was a total disaster. Are there any Dem politicians he likes (other than Jared Polis - who definitely is great!)?
I certainly don't think Dems have run a perfect campaign, particularly in regards to kitchen table issues like inflation. I also think the Republican party is an unserious joke, and while many millions of people support it, it's OK to acknowledge that.
The democracy thing is tough because it IS REALLY IMPORTANT but people just don't care about it. I hope Josh and Yglesias are right that the threat to democracy is overblown, I will happily eat crow. That being said, I live in suburban Wisconsin and Wisconsin has been gerrymandered into a near permanent GOP majority in the state legislature. I don't want to see similar situations play out in other purple states!
Fellow suburban Wisconsin resident and I agree. The Wisconsin gerrymandering is bad. I actually think it might help Evers in a weird way because so many people don’t want the Michels regimes running the show and he’s just a a bad as a candidate as Barnes for for different reasons. I’ve definitely got my disagreements with Evers but if he wins and literally does nothing that’s better than the alternative and I hope people see that. For non Wisconsin people, Evers makes Biden look like a really exciting candidate and I don’t think that’s an overstatement.
Democracy is THE MOST important issue by far. But it’s so far down on the list polls are not even listing it as an issue. That being said I’m really bothered by the DCCC funding Republicans to get an easier matchup. Hope to God that doesn’t backfire on them.
What ideas do Republicans have? That restricting fossil fuel supply - particularly of oil & gas in the United States - will cause prices to rise. That will suck for many Americans while doing little or nothing to curb global warming.
To the contrary, the U.S. is one of the few countries with meaningful emissions on pace to meet its Paris targets thanks to increased natural gas production from hydraulic fracturing finally toppling King Coal. We should be encouraging that substitution all over the world. Instead, many countries are reverting back to coal, an ecological disaster
Increasing production also has important knock-off benefits. Cheap energy is a backbone of U.S. industrial capitalism. And that - both the decent blue collar jobs it produces, and the opportunities it provides folks with less formal education to form their own rental or supply LLC and try to make their own score - is basically the only recipe we know for improving the lot of vast swaths of the population.
Not that the Dem alternative of "We'll increase the minimum wage you're paid to debase yourself serving young rich a-holes you neither like nor respect - delivering stuff to them, or driving them around, walking their dogs, being their gardener, whatever" is not attractive. But I don't think the Hispanic and other proud/ambitious dudes who reject that for a shot at earning real money - and maybe more - in industries based or reliant on fossil fuel extraction and cheap energy are irrational...
Come to Wisconsin and that’s what you get in the Senate race! It’s nutcase Ron Johnson (no explanation needed) versus Mandela Barnes who was happy to accept an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America and has a Twitter feed full of far left comments.
I feel like my strategy for this race would be to pull the lever for Barnes and then drink several shots of whiskey to get over the pain of having done it. I’m not excited about Hochul-Zeldin in NY state but at least Hochul is basically sane if uninspiring (I think she is more moderate/practical than she lets on, but chooses her battles against the completely insane far-left state legislature)
I think Barnes is a pretty bad candidate but he’s infinite orders of magnitude better than Ron Johnson. Johnson is an embarrassment that unfortunately will likely win yet again.
I mean as a physician who understands how vaccines work, I am definitely familiar with his antivax nonsense! Just remarkably stupid and credulous. Unlike DeSantis who is cynical but not stupid, Johnson seems like he’s actually dumb enough to believe this stuff.
Still would take some whisky with the Barnes vote but that’s better than the paint thinner I’d need to stomach a Johnson vote
I honestly can’t decide if Johnson is as stupid as he plays on TV. My inclination is that he isn’t stupid at all but has complete contempt for his constituents and thinks they are stupid. He essentially is in the vanguard of the GOP’s “all that really matters is owning the libs” movement. His ads are all about the culture war and linking Dems to riots. He wants rural WI residents to believe that Milwaukee and Kenosha no longer exist after being destroyed by trans BLM furries.
Having met and spoken with him several times as part of my former job, he isn't stupid. Erratic, sometimes nasty, unfocused, yes, but not stupid. Although my last meeting with him was 5+ years ago, and it does seem he's gone down the rabbit hole since then...
The number of ads and the type and tone of them is just relentless. And the fact it’s four, five, six of them in a row. If I never have to see another one on tv or stuffed in my mailbox again I’d be happy.
Johnson is not dumb to your excellent point he knows exactly what he’s doing. For all of Johnson’s faults and that’s very long list, he has (or someone has) run a better campaign than Barnes. He’s hammered down on crime and inflation and has not let up the entire time. I literally don’t think I’ve seen another type of ad from him, and it’s just one after the next over and over again. And that message really sells in large parts of the state.
Yea I really hope the democrats take a real hard look at this race and find some better candidates. Doubt they will but one can only hope!
I dare say you may need more than several shots. Maybe a whole bottle! It is Wisconsin after all!
And I can understand not being thrilled about Hochul. Our Governor’s race is similar except our Democratic governor doesn’t have to cater to the left wing of his party (thankfully) because the legislature is Republican. Since the Republican primary went to the Trump endorsed nutcase candidate who’s running a terrible campaign and the Democratic governor is acceptable to most he might be able to drag enough independents and anti Trump to get across the finish line.
Good article Josh.
1. Regarding Elevating Loonies. Indeed, the chance of winning election is not zero. FiveThirtyEight has Kari Lake in Arizona as a 2:1 favorite and has John Gibbs in MI-3 as only a slight underdog (45:55). Joe Kent appears to be heading towards an easy win in WA-3 after toppling Herrera-Beutler in the primary (although tbf, I'm not aware of Democratic PACs boosting Kent).
2. I think the manic behavior on Democratic side in regard to democracy is driven by a couple of factors. First is that the political energy in the Democratic coalition is on the progressive side (much as it is on the MAGA loony side for Republicans, although that seems to oscillate more at the given moment). So the Democrats are looking for their car keys under the street lamp where the light is good. Second is the David Shor problem. I think most politically active Democrats are aware that it is likely the Senate is going to be more biased against them in the near future based on demographics and population density. And the is causing them to be frenetic in strategy. On one side, they want to entrench as much policy as they can right now and potentially take steps to entrench their political power going forward (statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, push map drawing down to commissions where they have been successful in California is perpetrating gerrymandering through such commissions). On the other side, the want to try and appeal to a big-tent strategy on the issue of democracy and keeping election denying jackwads out of power. The former strategy undermines the latter.
Correct AFAIK that Kent was not one of the signal-boostees; assuming arguendo that grrr Pelosi et all wanted him in the WA-3 top two for similar logic to Gibbs in MI-3, Kent already had a sufficiently high profile that he had no need of any funding from the Ds, a situation unlike Gibbs or arguable Bolduc.
On a related ugly side of politics note, any theory why the national-level MAGA-ites did *not* try more effectively to take out Dan Newhouse? All they needed IMHO was to coordinate better on the the perfectly Trumpy Culp, who had the blessing of the Pope and came within less than 5% of second place. I understand why they left David Valadao alone (McCarthy told them to lay off on the grounds that Valadao was the only R who could keep the seat; I'm not sure McCarthy was right about that, but apparently that's the Straight Dope), but WA-4 is R+13, fer Ghu's sake. A Trumper could be caught with a dead girl and a live boy and still beat a Dem.
To the point that the D's, awful as they can be, are still more functional, if chaotic, than the Rs, to my knowledge Pelosi and Schumer took significant public flak from both the left and right wings of the party (e.g. AOC and Spanberger) and I'm not aware of any meaningful attempts to, err, cancel the critics (there are certainly plenty on the inside who consider Spanberger a heretic or DINO, but to my knowledge not over the free publicity to the loonies in the R primaries).
Too many MAGA cooks in the kitchen against Newhouse I suppose. I think we saw that in other races too where a MAGA person refused to get out of the race even though Trump endorsed someone else.
I'm not sure re MAGA cooks in the kitchen. I mean, yes, you are right in that the #3 finisher, Jerrod Sessler, was as MAGA as they come, and has more profile of a TRVE KVLT MAGA-head, as opposed to Culp who reads to me as being a bit more of an opportunist. I didn't follow the details like I did with Valadao.
But given that Newhouse, you know, voted to impeach, plus a few other lesser heresies like voting for the Jan 6 commission, voting for the RFMA, defeating a Tea Party darling in Newhouse's first and second elections (2014/2016), you would think he would have a much bigger target on his back and someone could have put pressure to drop out on either Sessler or the fourth place finisher, Klippert, who is kind of old school R but has an existing WA state Senate seat ("nice state legislative job you have there - be a shame if anything were to happen to it").
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I agree that the "save democracy" rhetoric does next to nothing to persuade voters. On the other hand, I believe that the rhetoric is pretty much 100% accurate on its substance. I don't have any good suggestions for how to campaign when one party is a genuine threat to American democracy and the electorate doesn't particularly care.
Meghan, great to see another WI suburbanite over here! I agree that Evers has the charisma of a Kwik Trip sandwich but I think that's kind of exactly what WI needed after the constant drama of Walker. I think a lot of Michels' attacks on Evers for how he handled Kenosha are in pretty bad faith. The dude mobilized the National Guard and sent them, what else is he supposed to do, grab a riot shield and enter the fray?
As for the DCCC, I am not a huge fan of it but I see it as everyday realpolitik and think the outrage over it is fairly contrived.
I will vote for Barnes but agree he's a subpar candidate. He's said too many dumb things in the past that should have come up in the primary but were ignored. Too bad because I think Ron Johnson is the most embarrassing WI elected official since McCarthy.
Anyways, here's to a brighter WI future! At least the Bucks are still good!
Agreed great to see another Wisconsinite over here. Evers is something else I’ll say that. The Kiel Trip sandwich might win that contest! But like I kind of oddly enjoy his boring nature. Barnes could learn some lessons from Evers on less is more on Twitter is not a bad thing!
Man this all just feels like the democrats are setting themselves up to blame someone else for an 11/8 loss, which will probably come down to low turnout. This party (and I guess the GOP too) is just incapable of learning lessons and is just going to double down on whatever nets the most fundraising wins. They'll cycle through a few more apparatchiks down there at the DNC HQ but new boss is old boss.
"Low turnout is definitionally good for Republicans" feels like it was last robustly supported in, I don't know, maybe 2014. Now it's just an axiomatic talking point.
Yeah I guess I meant low turnout means higher volatility and more surprises. But I see your point
Choosing election deniers is indeed a choice one has today -so democracy is still alive- but it sure feels like it could be the last choice you ever have if the maga crew wins and decides they'll only accept outcomes when they don't lose, hence eliminating choice and democracy.
I hear your frustrations, Josh, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on how Democratic candidates should talk about opponents who are literally saying that they either don't believe in democracy ("this is a republic, not a democracy") or that they will aggressively enact anti-democratic legislation such as voting restrictions or allowing their party to select presidential electors independently of the voting outcomes in their state. What is the right way to categorize this kind of behavior?
Josh what do you think of Wisconsin, where this antidemocratic future has already come to pass. Democrats really cannot win in the legislature even with more votes. And with supermajorities in the legislature, the state GOP do what they want.
Thank you for this!
Hi Josh,
Partly inspired by your previous post about Democrats' current woes, I wrote a post on my blog discussing my own thoughts on the matter. My biggest criticism is that while Biden has not encouraged domestic oil production, it has still gone up under him. Oil companies lost money in 2014 and 2020 and don't want to repeat that. Absent a guarantee of making a profit, they probably will not start drilling any time soon. In early 2021, gas prices were still low and trying to subsidize oil production would have been an impossible sell. The issue was not really on anyone's radar then. As for the ARP, there is plenty of debate as to how much inflation it caused. There doesn't seem to be any solid consensus. I am not taking a side on it, just pointing that out. Maybe without it growth would have been lower and unemployment higher. You also have to remember that in 2009 Democrats did not spend enough on stimulus measures and the economy suffered for it for years. Who was at the scene of the crime advising to spend the bare minimum? Larry Summers. That episode undoubtedly had a big effect on stimulus efforts in 2021. That doesn't let anyone pushing it off the hook, but this treating of Summers as a sage irritates me to no end given his terrible track record. Anyway, if you have time, please read what I wrote. I would greatly appreciate it.
https://whatandythinks.com/2022/10/29/what-could-democrats-have-done-to-improve-their-midterm-fortunes/
Hi Mr. Barro,
On the economic front, do we still have a good sense of how much of inflation is driven simply by standard goods vs supply trends and supply chain issues vs how much is just corporate greed and general capitalism? We as Americans are generally consumers and we love convenience. The Times today had an article (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/business/food-prices-profits.html) explaining how corporations are definitely raising prices more than
On the energy front the Biden administration definitely hasn't been as friendly as previous administrations related to land leases, however most of us should know that oil is a global commodity and when you hear energy and consumer good companies making record profits in a time when most people are struggling its clear that something doesn't add up.
I do agree 100% though, that if the DNC really believed their "threats to democracy" rhetoric then they wouldn't have tried to elevate terrible candidates on the GOP side. I'd argue they'd also push for more electable people in winnable races. I'd also believe that they'd listen to what the electorate is saying about what their pain points are and addressing those pain points, such as peoples concerns about immigration, crime, energy costs or inflation.
That said, the modern loud GOP members have engaged in a lot of stochastic terrorism with their rhetoric, misinformation, and don't offer a plan either. It seems that unfortunately is enough for their voters though. I live in GA and there are people who want Walker to win even though he is a terrible candidate, simply because they want their team to win. I definitely think the "threats to democracy" are overblown, but I don't think the threats to women's rights, abortion rights, unions, teachers, climate change, voting rights, political violence, are not overblown.
Man, Josh went in today.