Philip Klein of the right-wing Washington Examiner has a message for those who would criticize David Brooks and Bret Stephens for concern-trolling the Democrats.
Embracing a radical Left agenda because you think Trump is vulnerable so you may as well shoot for the moon is understandable, but it’s also completely reasonable for those who don’t like Trump but don’t buy into that agenda to say, “No thanks.”
But are these two things equally reasonable? Are they really equivalent postures at all?
I think the answer to both of those questions is ‘no.’
Both Brooks and Stephens (as well as Andrew Sullivan) are warning the Democrats that the hard-left shift of the party on display in the primaries is going to lose them much-needed votes in the middle and put the defeat of President Trump in jeopardy. It’s not something I disagree with and there are plenty of other Democrats who are raising the same concern. But the idea that Trump is so vulnerable that progressives should shoot for the moon is a calculated gamble rather than a moral consideration. The Democrats may choose a nominee who is unelectable thereby showing that they miscalculated. They may force an electable candidate to sabotage their general election chances in the process of winning the votes for the nomination. But that will also be more of an unintended consequence than a decision. Either way, you can chalk it up to making a mistake. In no way, will any of these people have chosen Trump or seen him as the better of two options.
For the Republican #NeverTrump crowd and those in the mushy-middle of American politics, the election is going to be a choice or a decision about whether Donald Trump should be granted a second term in office. Some may decide that it’s better to stick with Trump than put things in the hands of a Democrat running on a radical or socialistic platform. If they make that choice, then they’re showing that they’re really not that concerned about Trump. Whatever his faults, they are not as severe as living with college debt forgiveness or “open borders.”
Maybe some people will try to convince themselves that they can reject both options and avoid a choice. Some will rationalize that their state is going to be blue or red and their vote won’t change anything. Some will talk themselves into believing that a vote for a third-party candidate is at least half a vote against Trump even if will also be half a vote against the Democrat. But if you believe Trump should not be reelected, you can’t avoid a decision. Either you cast the vote with maximum power to defeat him or you don’t. If there are people out there who, given the power to wave a magic wand and determine the winner of the election, would choose Trump, then those people aren’t serious about opposing him.
What makes these choices different is that people on the left are clear on who they want to be president (the Democrat) and they’re arguing about how much they can get away with without jeopardizing that victory. Some people don’t want to shoot for the moon because they themselves are in a moderate camp. But they’re all engaged in a dispute about priorities and strategies rather than any confusion about whether someone could possibly be worse than Trump.
For people like Bret Stephens and David Brooks, they’re threatening to not support the Democrat if the Democrat is too far out of the mainstream. That’s a clear indication that the reelection of Trump isn’t the worst thing that can happen in their minds, and that’s a moral judgment. If Medicare-for-All and free college and the abolition of ICE are more repugnant than being a suspected foreign agent, an obvious criminal, an opponent of NATO and friend of Putin, a menace to a free press, and a brutalizer of migrant children, then they should be clear that they’ll tolerate everything Trump can dish out to prevent the election of a far left-wing Democrat.
The Democrats want to win the votes of all decent people, but you’re not a decent person if you would consider Trump over the alternative. It is not “reasonable” to say “no thanks” to the Democrat because you think their policies are too far left if those policies don’t involve crippling America’s alliances and moral leadership while committing a litany of crimes, including crimes against humanity.
It’s obviously a harder choice for a Republican to cast a vote for a Democrat than for a Democrat to cast a vote for a Democrat, but the referendum on Trump transcends ideological or ordinary political considerations. That’s why the choice David Brooks faces is not equivalent to the choice a Democrat faces in choosing between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders. It’s not the same kind of decision, as well, because when the Democrats argue about policy and strategy, it’s in the context of defeating Trump rather than in the context of possibly choosing Trump, staying home or casting a protest vote.
The bottom line is that you can’t be #NeverTrump if Trump is still an option for you. And you can’t oppose Trump with all your might by staying home or voting for the Libertarian or Green Party candidate. If you really want him gone, you’ll vote for the Democrat. If you want to have influence over who his opponent will be, you can hardly do worse than to threaten to leave the battlefield if you don’t get who you want.
Nice article. Thanks it says it well.
The Democratic primary is always less moderate than the election, which in turn is less moderate than the actual term of the president. Our system of government generally forces some moderation on all presidents. Obama is a fine example. Republicans with enough sense left to not want Trump again can vote for a Democrat for president, and work at electing enough senators and representatives that the resulting government is as balanced and moderate and centrist as you could want. In other words keep Mitch McConnell around to gum things up.
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I agree with what you say about the “never Trumpers” — gawd, they are annoying. I know we are all very nervous about the upcoming election, but how, exactly, could the candidate who wins the Democratic nomination be “too far outside the mainstream”? Presumably, she or he would have won the majority of primary votes, which would seem to put him or her within the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Are you measuring the mainstream by splitting the difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties? if you’re doing that, you are tilting it way over to the right. Sadly, if that’s what you’re doing, you are certainly not alone — our public discussion and debate have been increasingly skewed in this way over the past several decades.
Basically, I’m with Matt Yglesias:
This is impolite to mention, but one thing about anti-Trump conservative professional political pundits (as opposed to rank and file ex-Republicans) is their job essentially *requires* them to be perpetually saying Democrats are failing to win them over.
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Think of all the navel-gazing column inches they could write about their oh so agonizing vote for the Democrat. All the wailing and gnashing of pearly white conservative teeth on how they put their principles ahead of party in the best conservative tradition to get America back on the true conservative path, unsullied by the big orange stain.
Nah, never gonna happen. They’ll finish selling out, and we will be instead be subjected to their blather about how orange stain is bad, but “socialism is worse, hur dur”
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I don’t give a rat’s ass which Democratic candidates Brett Stephens considers too far to the left. But in the many discussions of this topic what’s rarely considered (Krugman is an exception) is that when you talk about “too far left”, what is your benchmark? The Republican Party has been moving rightwards for the past 40 years (now further right than most European RW parties), and the Democratic Party has generally followed in its wake, at least on the economic and to a large extent foreign policy fronts. As somebody who has seen this with my own eyes and felt it in my own life (I was already a voter 40 years ago) I say, let’s not be fooled by this concern-trolling BS. We need to remember, like Krugman, that these so-called left-wing fanatic Democrats are pretty much what used to be called normal Democrats; they are just trying to right the balance. And righting the balance is what’s desperately needed in these unbalanced times. This push to the left comes after decades of pushing to the right — if we don’t change direction, and not just cosmetically, we’re over the cliff.
Everything you need to know is here: https://www.salon.com/2019/06/18/whos-leading-the-wall-street-primary-looks-like-biden-harris-and-buttigieg/
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