Voters just saved democracy, and in spectacular styleÂ
Pop the champagne, folks: Americans just did something amazing.
After a long string of bummers and mistakes and armed invasions across the globe, after a seemingly endless stream of bad news, the American people went out last Tuesday and proved that democracy still works.
Pick your metaphor: threading a needle, jumping the river, rolling a natural 20. We did it.
In an age of hyper-partisanship, global crisis, and media outrage, the American people somehow managed the impossible: They delivered a justified rebuke to the Biden administration on inflation and Afghanistan while simultaneously preserving democracy. The Democrats lost the House of Representatives, but not by much—demonstrating to Biden and the Democrats that things are still tough out there. At the same time, voters did not give the Republicans carte blanche to enact their promises to restrict abortion, attack wokeness, reduce support for Ukraine, and promote the campaign of President Trump. (None of which amounts to a solution to inflation. Perhaps American voters understood that.)
In other words, the American people were able to deliver the message that Biden needs to be better than just okay, but that threats to democracy and rehashing the 2020 election need to end.
That’s a fairly sophisticated message to send in a two-party system where voters face thousands of different ballots and no two states have the same offices up for grabs.
I am a Democrat, but I think the divided result superior to a mere partisan victory. This was not a Democratic “win,” and it should not be read that way. It was a message to elected officials.
That Republicans failed to get the “bloodbath” they were hoping for is likely due to the violence and extremism they partnered with in 2022. From armed militiamen stalking Arizona voters to refusals to claim they would concede if they lost to jokes about the assault on Paul Pelosi, the GOP indebted themselves to wild-eyed radicalism—an approach more akin to bullying than campaigning. At times it seemed the GOP was daring voters to stop them: Whaddaya gonna do? Vote us out? If you do, you’ll get more Biden! Ha ha ha! You’re stuck with us!
On Tuesday, American gave the GOP its answer: Enough!
If the voters had merely picked Democrats across the board, this message wouldn’t have resonated. Instead, Americans did the responsible thing. They accepted Republican dissatisfaction and warned them to knock off the anti-democracy bunk.
Most if not all of the most prominent election deniers in swing states lost: Whitmer beat Dixon, Cortez-Masto beat Laxalt, Kelly beat Masters, Evers beat Michaels. If Katie Hobbs’ lead in Arizona holds up, every swing state in 2024 will be run by election officials who know that our voting systems are reliable and voter fraud almost impossible.
Arizona came through spectacularly, where the most prominent election denier and member of the Oath Keepers, Mark Finchem, lost to his opponent by more than any other statewide Republican. A good number of Republicans in Arizona switched their votes to make sure the man who ran on a purely election denial platform went home, hopefully for good.
Election denialism isn’t just about Republicans. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, led by Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Sean Maloney, spent money in 2022 to promote election deniers in GOP primaries on the theory that they would be easier to beat in the general. That, too, is appalling. To support any election denier is by definition to attack American democracy.
Guess what? Voters in New York’s 11th Congressional District voted Maloney out of office. ENOUGH!
It’s not all good news. At least two people who planned and were present at the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol (but did not enter the building) will now serve in Congress. Outright election deniers won races in conservative states like Texas and Alabama. Liberals and moderates had their hopes dashed as it appeared Lauren Boebert—an election-and-vaccine-denying extremist—eked out a victory over her Democratic opponent. And yet the close call for Boebert is also a warning sign for extremists: We are not afraid of you.
Many pundits blasted Biden and the Democrats for highlighting threats to democracy in this election cycle. (I guess they wanted the Democrats to talk about inflation? I don’t know.) But Biden was right and the media was wrong.
(By the way, the media has now badly misjudged the last four election cycles. They said 2016 would be a walk for Clinton, 2018 would be a massive blue wave, 2020 would be an easy win for Biden and Trump would eventually accept the results, and 2022 would be a red wave. As Jennifer Rubin notes, it may be time for the media to stop trying to predict elections and focus on the policy decisions that will come from elections. But what do I know? Only that reporting based on polling is flawed and dangerous.)
Biden and the Democrats did the right thing: They contended that the republic was under threat and made that the center of their campaign. In other words, the Democrats may have finally stopped treating American politics like a game (especially with Maloney gone). This time they did not try to soft-peddle anti-democratic rhetoric. They told it like it is.
Bullies thrive on fear. America just told the world not to be afraid.
The American people accepted that argument—and found time to poke Biden and the Democrats on pocketbook issues.
Democracy is messy, and a blunt instrument. It is hard to deliver a nuanced message from the ballot box. But Americans just did it.
No doubt people on both sides of the aisle will forget this lesson and make partisan hay. But maybe, just maybe, politicians will begin to realize that fearmongering is not only bad for the country, it’s bad for their careers.
For now: Pop the champagne!Â
Adam Jortner is the Goodwin-Philpott Professor of Religion in the History Department at Auburn University. He is the author of the Audible series Faith of the Founding Fathers and was part of the creative team behind Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?