The Democratic Party's Cynical Caper

 

By David K. Shipler

               Now that the mid-term primaries are over, the cynical wing of the Democratic Party can tally its “wins.” Those are the radical right-wing election deniers and Pro-Trump fans of autocracy whose victories in Republican primaries were owed in part to Democratic-funded ads.

Six of thirteen such candidates won and are headed to the November election, where Democrats hope their extremism will be repulsive enough to the broader universe of voters that their Democratic opponents will prevail. That could happen, but it would be a sordid achievement.

              First, as some leading Democrats have warned, it’s a risky proposition. Some of those crazies could get elected, as Trump himself did after Hillary Clinton’s campaign ran as if Trump’s own flaws would defeat him.

Second, even where Democratic candidates prevail in the general election, the Republican radicals and their nonsensical conspiracy slanders will have been given more of a platform courtesy of Democratic money.

“Many of these candidates develop a much larger following, even if they lose the current race,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist. “What we have seen is, they come back and win for school board or state legislative race or for city councils because of this new awareness and this new recognition.”

Third, spending $53-million in nine states has broken faith with Democratic donors who thought their contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would be going to—duh—Democratic campaigns.

Fourth, and perhaps most important in the long run, to work against principled Republican House members who had the courageous patriotism to vote for Trump’s impeachment after January 6, is to help undermine the prospects for a reformation in the Republican Party. The country needs two responsible political parties, and the Democrats have now helped enhance the dangers of embracing decency.

 For example, Democrats spent $435,000 to advertise the rightist credentials of election-denier John Gibbs in Michigan—“too conservative for West Michigan,” one ad said—which surely helped him defeat Peter Meijer, who had voted for Trump’s impeachment after the Capitol riot. Gibbs has defended anti-Semites and accused Democrats of satanic rituals; the Democratic contributions far outweighed his own fundraising.

“You would think that the Democrats would look at John Gibbs and see the embodiment of what they say they most fear,” Meijer wrote the day before his defeat, “that as patriots they would use every tool at their disposal to defeat him and similar candidates that they've said are an existential threat.”

 In California, Democrats tried to defeat David Valadao, another Republican who voted for impeachment, by spending $200,000 promoting his opponent, Trump loyalist Chris Mathys, whose own campaign spent just $80,000. Valadao beat Mathys, but just barely, giving Mathys a case for continuing in politics.

The political risks of extremism seem to be grasped by some of the radicals supported with Democratic money. As they face the wider spectrum of voters, they are trying to foil the Democrats’ game plan by looking less extreme. Some have downplayed their adoration of Trump and their anti-abortion zealotry. And their election denials.

Retired general Don Bolduc, who benefited from Democratic ads attacking his moderate opponent as “another sleazy politician,” underwent an epiphany after winning the New Hampshire Republican primary for the Senate.

Before: “I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Trump won the election, and, damn it, I stand by my letter,” he said in a primary debate. “I’m not switching horses, baby. This is it.”

After, on Fox News: “I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen.”

              Whether enough New Hampshire voters will be fooled by Bolduc’s conversion is an open question; the DCCC obviously hopes not. But embedded in the Democrats’ strategy is a kind of quaint faith in the good sense of the country’s citizens, despite the millions more who voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, after four years of political ugliness and damage to the nation’s global standing, democratic norms, and national security.

Some of the extremists might have won without Democratic money. But the races were picked carefully to tip the balance in districts where radicals were in close contests, and where the general electorate seems averse to Trumpism.

The strongest argument for boosting the right-wingers over more moderate Republicans rests on the legitimate fears for democracy. With a majority in Congress, this newly radicalized Republican Party could raise havoc with voting rights and electoral procedures nationally, as Republican-led state legislatures are doing. Blocking that outcome, according to the rationale, is worth sacrificing some upstanding Republican legislators. They have negligible influence anyway in a party not only beholden to Trump, but increasingly infiltrated by champions of vote manipulation, autocracy, and white supremacy.

It’s probably correct that only if the Republican Party is obliterated at the polls can it be shocked into remaking itself in the image of Liz Cheney instead of Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. If that ever happens, the Democrats who thought up this unsavory means to an elusive end will crow in vindication.

To be fair, there are more leading Democrats who have decried this tactic than Republicans who have assailed their party’s Trumpist fetishism. But going forward, watch for Republicans to play the same game by supporting unelectable far leftists in Democratic primaries. Can they grit their teeth and work against their principles as well as Democrats have? Oh, of course they can.