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I’ve been thinking about the conversation on the anti-Trump right between the “burn it all down” folks and their “go easy on the rest of the GOP” counterparts. There is an air of unreality about this discussion. Let me explain. (Thread)
This fall, on Election Day or before, each of us will have the opportunity to vote for or against candidates for just two or three federal offices: the presidency, a House seat, and in two-thirds of the states a Senate seat. That’s it.
I don’t have the opportunity to “burn down” or preserve the GOP’s grip on or chance of filling any of the other 434 House sets or 30+ Senate seats. The most I can do is talk about those offices beyond my reach, or maybe give money to candidates for them. My direct effect is zero.
Anyone who’s saying “I want to burn it all down” or “I want to salvage the Republican Party for the future” is expressing a wish about what voters generally may do, not talking about a goal he himself can effectuate in any way.
So how should I think as a voter this fall, if I have habitually been a GOP voter but I’m out of sorts about Trump’s performance? Other than not voting for Trump, that is. If you live as I do, where you’re represented by two Democratic senators and a Democrat in the House, easy:
Vote for the Republican Senate and House candidates on your ballot. If Trump loses the presidency but by some good fortune these GOP candidates win, they will be in at the beginning of a post-Trump party. Whatever views they expressed about him, they’ll have to adjust.
If, on the other hand, you live where there are GOP congressional incumbents on the ballot, and you take a dim view of Trump, you should examine their records for signs of undue sycophancy and vote accordingly. Garden variety support for the administration on policy is normal,...
and should be considered unexceptionable. Even voting not to convict him in the impeachment trial is understandable. It’s a lot to ask of a president’s party that its legislators remove him from office. I wanted Dems to vote to convict Clinton but couldn’t really expect them to.
But aggressively running cover for the president, slavishly making excuses for his failures, and catering to his bogus conspiracy theories and paranoia are another matter. These worst of the worst can be easily spotted on TV and elsewhere, abasing themselves shamelessly.
Them I would vote against, if any of them represented me. My overall point is that “the party’s future” is not in my hands. Discrete choices about candidates are. This is true of each of us, and this is how I think we should think. The rest is noise.
