大象传媒

Here we go again. On Sept. 12, soon-to-be-deposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an 鈥溾�� into President Biden. McCarthy was clearly trying to appease the extreme right-wingers in his party, who are upset that the speaker hasn鈥檛 been sufficiently radical over budget negotiations. And of course, McCarthy presented Biden has done anything warranting impeachment. But in the post-fact vacuum that is the Republican mindset, no evidence the president has done anything wrong is simply evidence he鈥檚 hiding something.

The only thing that McCarthy even mentioned related to the inquiry鈥攁 鈥渃ulture of corruption鈥濃�攊s patently bogus in relation to this White House. But is another matter, and it鈥檚 clear the GOP is going to use the as a wedge to pry out any grain of dirt they can find to stop this administration from governing before the election next year, at which point they can return Donald Trump to power.

There鈥檚 a lot to say about this鈥攈ow the Biden administration specifically, and Democrats generally, haven鈥檛 done enough to distance themselves from Hunter Biden鈥檚 failings; how go all the way back to , the albatross stepson to James Madison; and how all this plays into a (especially with the House thrown into chaos by the self-imposed decapitation within the GOP) and the election next year. So let鈥檚 just leave that here, because something bigger is at stake, and not just whether or not McCarthy will carry through with his threat to impeach Biden.

In recent weeks I鈥檝e been thinking about the fundamental crisis facing the United States鈥攐ne that goes beyond Donald Trump鈥檚 bid for reelection鈥攚hich is that one of the two major political parties has turned definitively against democracy.

We see this most recently in the forthcoming biography of U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, Romney: A Reckoning, by McKay Coppins, as . Romney, the only senator in U.S. history to vote to convict an impeached president of his own party (which he did twice), is retiring in 2024, and burning bridges with his cohorts in the Republican Party. 鈥淎 very large portion of my party really doesn鈥檛 believe in the Constitution,鈥� he told Coppins.

Romney鈥檚 observation is shared on the political left鈥攂ut it鈥檚 also fair to criticize how Romney has helped the rise of the radical right during his long career in the Senate. It鈥檚 one thing to label the problem of the Republican Party becoming an autocratic party, and quite another trying to figure out what to do with it. 

I was a guest on a recent episode of (she is also my colleague here at 大象传媒) when she asked me whether massive voter turnout for Biden and other Democratic candidates in 2024 is the only thing preventing us from sliding into autocracy鈥攁苍诲 how to convince progressives and liberals who would prefer to vote for someone else to hold their noses and vote for Biden.

Sadly, the answer to the first question is yes, and it鈥檚 not just going to be in 2024, but in every election going forward in which the future of American democracy is on the ballot. When one party has firmly turned against democracy, then every election has the potential to be the last election. Elections become existential for our constitutional republic. 

This makes recent complaints about Biden鈥檚 age, for example, or other calls for him to step aside, or evidence that big donors to progressive causes are cutting back, all the more frightening. Yes, voting, especially in presidential elections, is often a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Pointing out that there鈥檚 a world of difference between Biden and Trump won鈥檛 make some voters on the left any more enthusiastic for Biden鈥檚 reelection. 

Depressed turnout on the left is likely to lead to Trump winning a second term. And I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 overwrought to say that such an outcome will signal the end of American democracy. There may be future elections, but they will likely be neither free nor fair, and the right to vote at all will be curtailed even more than it is already, especially for Black voters.

So to the second half of Sonali鈥檚 question: How can we convince the left that, yes, voting for someone you don鈥檛 like is better than the available alternatives鈥攙oting for Trump out of spite, voting for a third-party candidate of any political stripe, or staying home鈥�all of which would contribute to a Republican victory?

Part of this comes down to the definition of voting. Often, it鈥檚 interpreted as voters 鈥渆xpressing their preference,鈥� words that imply that any preference is fine. And that definition is not technically wrong. In an ideal system, that is indeed how voting would work, and the results would honor those preferences to the same degree that people express them.

In Congress, that means proportional representation. In a race for a single office鈥攊.e., the presidency鈥攊t鈥檚 a popular vote contest. 

In the United States of America, we have neither of those systems. Most races for the House of Representatives are a case of the politician, or their party, choosing who their voters are, thanks to gerrymandering of congressional districts. Races for the presidency take place under the rules of the Electoral College, which only approximately follows the popular vote and leaves plenty of room for shenanigans. 

(Ironically, the U.S. Senate, a legislative body created to reduce popular power, and whose rules have become political weapons on the right to suppress Democratic goals and initiatives鈥攕ee , 鈥攊s the one case where the popular vote actually governs the outcomes. Senate elections are also notoriously flush with corporate money.)

Voting is not an independent exercise of popular will, as much as we鈥檇 like it to be. It is an activity that occurs within different systems and has different effects: In the Senate, votes determine the winner. In the race for the White House, they often, but not always, determine the winner. And in the House, more often than not, the votes are a foregone conclusion.

What matters鈥攚hat does achieve results鈥攊s not how one individual votes, but rather the number of individuals who do in each jurisdiction. Turnout not only matters, it鈥檚 the whole ball game.

The people who knock on doors to recruit new or infrequent voters, who drive folks who are immobile to the polls, who collect and deliver absentee ballots for those same people, who make sure the voters aren鈥檛 swarmed by hostile activists, who hand out food and water to people standing in hours-long lines, and who remind voters of their rights at every step of the way, have more influence over the outcomes of elections than individual voters do. 

It鈥檚 telling that today鈥檚 Republican party has perfected tactics targeting all of these activities. Georgia even passed a law鈥斺�攖hat criminalized giving voters food and water when they were in a polling line.

When you hear the catchphrase, 鈥淰ote in numbers too big to manipulate,鈥� that鈥檚 an appeal to activism. 

Now look at the battleground for 2024. The U.S. is in a very different place even from just a few years ago.

Wisconsin Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, have , before she鈥檚 even heard a case because she鈥檚 likely to break the Republicans鈥� lock on power and rule that the state鈥檚 extremely gerrymandered legislative districts are unconstitutional.

North Carolina Republicans have to make appointments to election boards. Gov. Roy Cooper has already vetoed the legislation once. (The Tarheel State also has one of the more heavily gerrymandered legislatures, and its Congressional map was, too, before a . The makeup of the supreme court has since changed, however, so it is expected that Democrats will be gerrymandered into a tiny Congressional minority, instead of having parity to match the population.)

The Alabama Republican-dominated legislature has flat-out ignored a to create a second district that could represent Black voters. Despite a rebuke from the highest court of the land, the Republicans redrew the maps to allow just one Black district and , hoping for a different outcome. They didn鈥檛 get it, and now , which is likely to create a second Black (and Democratic) seat. For now, the battle is over, but likely not forever.

That鈥檚 just a sampling. And while Alabama may not be considered a competitive state for Democrats, constituents did not that long ago. , and North Carolina was 鈥攁苍诲 (both Barack Obama in 2008, and Trump in 2016, had narrow wins). The postmortems on the 2020 presidential election, the 2022 midterms, and even past elections, are the same: When in large numbers, especially , Democrats tend to win.

The Democratic Party doesn鈥檛 seem to want to admit this, but there it is. If Democrats want to win a race, Black people are the voters to try to reach, not the white suburban 鈥渃entrists鈥� who wonder if Biden鈥檚 too old, or who swung to Trump in 2016 because they didn鈥檛 think he was that bad, or who believed some version of 鈥渂ut her emails鈥� when the false equivalence pushed by Republicans into the national media became ubiquitous.

(It is true that suburban white women are an often-targeted demographic. Abortion politics are particularly resonant with this voting bloc, which is why Republicans would rather talk about anything else. But while women voters only lean Democratic, . Which demographic group carries more weight in a given election is, again, a matter of turnout.)

If Democrats want to win, and continue to win, they鈥檙e going to need better voter outreach in Black communities. , and only 51% white. But the state is a battleground because the Georgia Democratic Party is well-organized, and not least because backfired dramatically. , yet it鈥檚 basically a Republican lock statewide except for the 2nd District, which is about 65% Black, including much of the city of Jackson and the western parts of the state along the Mississippi River. The national Democratic Party may consider the state a write-off, but it would be a prime target for a second round of 鈥�60s-style activism.

Even though the 1960s are now mostly confined to the history books, it鈥檚 best not to forget what happened then: the bus boycotts, the Freedom Rides, the marches on Selma, Birmingham, and Washington, D.C. The entire 20th-century civil rights movement, which picked up after World War II where Reconstruction left off, led directly to two major legislative victories: and the . Today鈥檚 Supreme Court conservative majority has , and Republicans, their power enhanced as a result, have made no secret of their plans to now the . If the GOP is determined to roll back the clock, Democrats need to meet this moment with the same energy they used to defeat Republicans the first time in the 1960s.

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Chris Winters is a senior editor at 大象传媒, where he specializes in covering democracy and the economy. Chris has been a journalist for more than 20 years, writing for newspapers and magazines in the Seattle area. He鈥檚 covered everything from city council meetings to natural disasters, local to national news, and won numerous awards for his work. He is based in Seattle, and speaks English and Hungarian. Connect:

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