Why I am Not Optimistic About the Prospects of American Democracy

I do not believe that the recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey, etc. are a must-win for Democrats.  I do believe that the 2022 are a must-win for democracy.  And I see no evidence whatever that democracy will survive the 2022 elections, when MAGA candidates seek to take over the election machinery and Republican candidates run for Congress on a pledge not to certify a Democrat as president.. The 2021 elections showed that accepting election results is a deal breaker for the Republican base, and that refusal to accept result is not a deal breaker for swing voters.  

Daniel Ziblatt argues that when authoritarian parties menace a democracy, the only way to stop them is by a grand coalition of the pro-democracy forces across the ideological spectrum.  His book (pp. 26-32) gives instances of how this has worked in multi-party, parliamentary systems.  In Belgium in 1936, Belgium's conservative Catholic Party expelled all supporters of fascist parties and formed an alliance with the Socialists (social democrats, not communists) and Liberals. This was a bitter pill, not just for the Catholics Party, but also for the Socialists, who had a plurality but not a majority in Parliament, yet had to accept the Catholic leader as prime minister.  Likewise in Finland mainstream parties initially tolerated the violent right so long as it targeted Communists, broke with it when it began kidnapping Social Democrats and attempted a putsch.  Conservative parties then allied with the Social Democrats to defeat the far right.*  More recent examples exist as well.  In Austria in 2016, conservative parties backed the Green candidate over the far-right candidate in a runoff election for president.  And, although Ziblatt does not mention it, mainstream German parties have held together in a frail coalition to keep out the Alternatives for Deutschland.

So what would that look like in the US, with our uniquely binary, first-past-the-post system?  Well in Louisiana 1990 and 1991, the Republican establishment threw its support behind the Democratic candidates for Senate and Governor respectively, rather than let David Duke win.  

But I suppose it is asking too much to expect the Republican Party to intentionally lose an election for President.  So the alternative would rely on Democrats making the broadest possible coalition, reaching out to swing voters, and seeking to isolate Republicans as extremist and undemocratic.  That did not work in the recent election.  In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won swing voters by not embracing Trump too closely, but he also won the Republican base by not expressly repudiating the claim of a stolen election.  Ten participants in the "Stop the Steal" rally won, as opposed to only five who lost.**  Some 57 participants are up for election in 2022 and likely to win.  

Ziblatt's advice (pp. 214-220) is not to violate accepted institutional norms, but to fight within them, and to build the broadest possible coalition, including swing voters and pro-democracy conservatives.  It is the general advice one hears to treat Trump (and MAGA) as ordinary opponents. Ziblatt contrasts Hugo Chavez in Venezuela with Alvaro Urribe in Colombia, who showed similar autocratic tendencies.  Chavez' opponents attempted a coup against him, and thereby made themselves look anti-democratic and Chavez like the democrat.  This furnished the perfect opportunity for him to crack down. Something similar happened when Recep Erdogan's opponents attempted a coup.  In Colombia, by contrast, Urribe's opponents stuck to the legislature and the courts and preserved the democracy.

To the extent that Ziblatt means don't resort to illegal or extra-legal measures, I agree.  These are more likely to discredit Trump's opponents than to succeed, and even if they succeed, they simply destroy democracy in a different way.  But does it mean not pointing out what an intolerable threat Trump and MAGA pose to democracy?  Does it mean not proclaiming from the rooftops that the MAGA crowd is even now attempting to intimidate election officials and drive them from office with threats and harassment, and to install vote counters who will refuse to accept results regardless of the outcome? Democracy is under siege.  Is the only way to preserve it to refrain from saying so?

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*In both cases, the defeat of domestic fascists did not prevent the country from being overrun by foreign invaders, Nazi Germans in Belgium and Soviets in Finland.  But it paved the way for a democratic restoration afterward.

**It is at least mildly encouraging that all denied having actually breached the Capitol.