Simple concept that GOP now opposes
While the 2020 presidential election and various other election races are still being fought, there are already some lessons to be learned. In particular, based on the Republicans’ behavior thus far, Democrats need to do some things differently to match and defeat their opponents going forward. Assuming that Joe Biden, currently well ahead in both electoral and popular votes, defeats Donald Trump for the presidency and/or Democrats at least tie the Republicans for control of the U.S. Senate, here are five things the Democrats should do as soon as they take power:
1. Guard election counting efforts — This should have be a no-brainer, since the Republican “Brooks Brothers Riot” of 2000 already featured a Republican mob illegally shutting down vote counting offices (in that case, a presidential election recount in Florida) by rushing inside, shouting, banging on the doors and windows, and preventing civil servants from doing their job. This week, however, Republicans are at it again, mobbing vote counting offices in states like Michigan and Arizona to try to “stop the count” of votes. While Arizona has a Republican Governor who sadly might not be expected to uphold “law and order,” Michigan has a Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who was recently the target of a right wing kidnapping plot. Governor Whitmer should have had National Guard troops and state police guarding the vote counting in Detroit and elsewhere, and ready to use necessary force to uphold the law. Going forward, we must assume that Republican mobsters (indeed, domestic terrorists in some cases) will continue to break the law by trying to disrupt vote counting and threaten government officials, just like they have now done in two elections, and there’s simply no excuse in failing to take proper precautions.
2. No coalition from the center — If Biden wins the election, Republicans and various people in the media will say that President Biden will need to “govern from the center” by including both Republican officials (such as Cabinet secretaries) and Republican policies in his government. Indeed, someone at CNN reportedly said just that this morning. Our reaction is the same as this:
CNN now saying Biden will have to "lead from the middle" because the results ultimately will be tighter than predicted.
Show me where Trump, who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, did that.
I'll wait.
America's pundit class needs to retire.— David Badash (@davidbadash) November 5, 2020
3. Prosecute Republicans for crimes — When President Barack Obama took office, he failed to hold George W. Bush administration officials legally accountable for torture and other alleged war crimes. Instead, Obama stated that he wanted to “look forward instead of looking backward.” If elected president, Joe Biden should uphold America’s laws and have the Department of Justice prosecute Donald Trump, his family members, and all members of the Trump administration for any crimes which the evidence demonstrates they have committed. If this country stands for anything, it is the principle that no one is above the law. Furthermore, Republicans have already set the standard here, for example, against former Democratic Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, as well as Donald Trump’s repeated calls to “lock up” his political opponents even when there is no evidence that they committed any crimes.
4. Hire “acting” agency heads — Reports are coming in that, should Joe Biden win the presidency but Republicans maintain their Senate majority, Leader Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans won’t confirm many would-be Biden Cabinet and other Executive Branch nominees whose posts require Senate confirmation. Rather, as stated in the above-linked article, “The new Senate political math … could push Biden to go with more centrist options” who meet with Republican approval, or even ones who are suggested by the Republicans in the first place. President Biden should resist any such pressure, for the simple reason that Donald Trump already set the standard by hiring “acting,” or temporary, Cabinet Secretaries and other federal officials in order to skirt Senate confirmation. There have been more than 15 “acting” Trump officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security, Assistant Secretary of Defense, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), etc. Biden thus should feel free to appoint whom he wants in this manner.
5. Don’t try to reason with Republicans — Most Republicans (with exceptions like those in The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump) have demonstrated that they can’t be reasoned with or trusted. They seek only to defeat the Democrats in the struggle to gain and maintain raw power, and they will use immoral, unethical and even illegal means, as well as spout conspiracy theories, to do so. It’s nice that Joe Biden says he wants to unite America, and he should attempt to do so. But if Biden becomes president and the Democrats, along with maintaining their U.S. House majority, have roughly a tie in the U.S. Senate, then Republicans should only be asked to join Democrats to pass legislation and get other things done if the Republicans are willing to move at least halfway to the Democratic side. There can be no unilateral Democratic political disarmament. Moreover, in print, podcasts and videos, conversations, formal political debates and elsewhere, Democrats need to dispense with the naive notion that they can simply convince Republicans to change their positions or behavior based on good reasoning. Rather, Democrats should maintain the political war footing that Republicans have adopted for many decades, and should focus on building the political power needed to defeat the Republicans rather than hoping the GOP will just be nice and agree this time. An analogy might be what we often see between people and nations in the Middle East. While it is true that one sits down to make peace with one’s enemies, not one’s friends, it is also true that one needs a partner who wants peace, in order for peace to occur. And for the foreseeable future, the Republicans have demonstrated that they do not want to make peace.
Photo by Jay Cross, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/ZGo0qK
