As execrable as The New York Times can be, it’s still possible to find good reporting there and sanity among the opinion pages in some spots. Jamelle Bouie is one of the rare voices among the punditry to fully support President Biden’s warnings about MAGA-Republicans. His latest begins this way:
You Can’t Talk About MAGA America in Hushed Tones
President Biden is right. The so-called MAGA movement, led by Donald Trump, is a direct threat to democratic self-government in the United States.
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” as Biden put it in Philadelphia last week. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.”
The proof is everywhere you look. Of the 540 Republican nominees on the ballot nationwide this year, 199 deny the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight. An additional 62 candidates have raised doubts about the legitimacy of the election, and 118 candidates didn’t answer the question. Pro-insurrection candidates lead the Republican ticket in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania — key presidential swing states — and Trump-aligned Republican activists are targeting election officials across the country with harassment and threats of violence.
Bouie discusses threats like the Republican effort to get their Supreme Court to rule that State Legislatures have the constitutional authority to do anything they want with elections — how they are run, how they are tallied, and how they are certified — to the point of throwing out results they don’t like. In other words, permanent Republican rule in red states and the people they send to Washington.
Bouie looks at two responses to Biden’s remarks. One argues Biden should give up key Democratic goals for the sake of unity with conservative opponents of Trump. The other says he should appeal to “the “better angels” of MAGA Republican voters”.
Bouie rejects both in no uncertain terms. He notes doing either would demoralize Democratic voters at a time when the most important thing is winning elections.
And then he makes this observation: division is necessary.
What matters is the nature of the divide. To divide against a radical minority that would attack and undermine democratic self-government is to divide along the most inclusive lines possible. It is to do a version of what Franklin Roosevelt did when he condemned“organized money,” “economic royalists” and the “forces of selfishness and lust for power.” It’s also a version of what Abraham Lincoln did when, in his first inaugural address, he took aim at those who would subject the country to minority rule. “A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people,” he said. “Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.”
“You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government,” Lincoln added, “while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend it.’ ”
emphasis added
The only criticism Bouie has of Biden is that he didn't go far enough in making this point. He name-checks the billionaires spending millions of dollars to make the MAGA movement a permanent fixture in America. He closes with this:
Biden and the Democratic Party should make this clear — much clearer than they have so far. The struggle for democracy is the struggle for human equality is the struggle for a fairer economy is the struggle for the rights of workers and the dignity of labor. And if the enemies of democracy are fighting their war on every possible front, its defenders should, too.
The moral clarity here is refreshing. If we need a rallying cry, and it seems like we just might, that’s not the worst one I’ve seen. What do you think?
One More Thing: If you haven’t seen the Frontline report “Lies, Politics, and Democracy” make time to do so soonest. It lays out in chilling detail just how far gone the Republican Party is these days.
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