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| I Alone Can Fix It |
Look, I get it. Democracy is hard. It requires us to be good losers -- and gracious winners. It requires us to value procedure over substance. And above all, it requires us to accept that elections have consequences, and that when the other side wins, they will enact policies one's own side does not like, and that this has to be accepted as normal.
Alas, I did not save the link to the post by Erick Erickson in which he began to acknowledge as much. He acknowledged that after years of believing that the survival of liberty depended on defeating Obamacare, and then on rolling it back once it passed, it had become obvious that it was not politically feasible to repeal Obamacare, and that liberty would, after all, survive.
Others have commented that this is nothing new. Republican donors and think tank policy planners are all formally committed to rolling back the New Deal, even though no Republican politician would ever dare actually do such a thing. Liberty would end with the passage of Social Security. And when Social Security turned out it was here to stay, Liberty would end with Medicare and Medicaid. And when those became too well established to repeal, liberty would end with Obamacare.
All of which leads me to this column in the Washington Examiner. It is, essentially, a rejection of the Never Trump approach in favor of what they regard as the sensible conservative view:
Some made their peace with Trump — wincing at his nutty tweets while recognizing that he was their only chance to advance their agenda and viewing him as ultimately an ally in the battle against the Left.
Others choose to take things issue by issue — criticizing his outrageous statements and actions while applauding decisions with which they agreed. Yet another group of dead-enders have sought to oppose him at every turn, even when he does something they may have, in a previous life, agreed with.
Never Trumpers, it warns, are "dead-enders" who let their personal distaste for Trump outweigh their support of him on policy matters. The author sees their support for Democrats as shocking, even though it can be charitably interpreted:
The least cynical version of their argument is that getting rid of a toxic president, who pays deference to vile conspiracy theories from the White House, is crucial to the future of the republic. They argue that it is worth risking four years of a liberal president to get one who is willing to uphold some basic standards of the office.
To which I can only say, duh! Pushing vile conspiracy theories from the White House is the work of a demagogue who poses a serious threat to functioning democracy and the rule of law. Nor is having a liberal President some sort of extraordinary risk that endangers the future of the Republic. As a matter of fact, having a liberal President is something that has happened quite regularly and our Republic has survived it just fine.
The author then runs by a parade of horrors a Biden Presidency might introduce -- a public option added to Obamacare, a $15 minimum wage, reviving the Iran deal, liberal judges, perhaps an expansion of the judiciary. At the same time, the author seems to acknowledge that these are well within the mainstream of American politics and that significant portions of the political spectrum might support them, or at least not see them as all that bad.
Is it reasonable and acceptable for Never Trumpers who supported Biden to oppose these policies? Of course it is. But it is also reasonable for Never Trumpers to oppose these policies as ordinary policy disputes, and not in the all-out survival-of-the-Republic way that they oppose Trump.
The author acknowledges that Republicans may respond to defeat by becoming (even more) radicalized and fall into "conspiracy and extremism." He also acknowledges that candidates "even more fringey than Trump" are starting to win primaries. But he doesn't see any of this as seriously problematic, so much as an understandable reaction to riots in US cities and the rise of a radical Left.
I agree that a Biden Administration would have a problem on its hands reigning in the radical Left, and that failure to do so will mean ruin and reaction. But it is also entirely reasonable and appropriate for Never Trumpers to work on reigning in the radical Right, which has historically been a greater threat to democracy than the far Left.
At what point should Never Trumpers start treating a Biden Administration as just as dangerous as a Trump Administration, rather than a set of normal policy differences? I would say, when Biden starts to look as procedurally dangerous as Trump. Will Joe Biden evade the Constitutional requirement of submitting appointments to the Senate by appointing acting officials? Will he shift funds to pay for pet projects that Congress refused to fund? Will he make a blanket rejection of all oversight subpoenas by Congress? Will he say that courts have no jurisdiction to enforce such subpoenas? Will he sue to block third party subpoenas that might reveal personal information? Will he resist sending aid to red states hit by hurricanes or tornadoes because they didn't vote for him? In case of national emergency, will he demand that governors praise him as a condition for getting assistance? Will he cut off military aid to friendly foreign governments to force them to investigate his political rivals? Will he casually steal government property because he assumes that it is his personal property? Will he refused to divulge his finances? Will he routinely -- and proudly -- violate the Hatch Act and treat the federal government as a campaign prop? When he makes mistakes (as he undoubtedly will), will he force apolitical agencies like the NOAA to change forecasts to match his misstatements? And above all else, will he refuse to recognize elections as legitimate unless he likes the outcome?
If a prospective Biden Administration does these things, then Never Trumpers, and Democrats as well, should oppose him with the all-out fury that they opposed Trump.
Otherwise, these are just normal policy disputes and should be treated as such.
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