Democracy, which has been under assault around the world in recent years — including, sadly, in the United States — may be making a bit of a comeback.
In Utah, a state only slightly less red than a fire engine, the Democratic Party, rather than nominate its own candidate in what would have been a hopeless Senate campaign against incumbent Mike Lee, chose instead to endorse a principled conservative, former CIA officer and presidential candidate Evan McMullin. McMullin, a fiscal conservative who is far to the right of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is also pro-environment and believes in voting rights and the rule of law. He was an anti-Trump candidate in 2016, a fierce critic of Trump’s presidency, and endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. In other words, a half-century ago, McMullin might have as easily been a moderate Democrat as a moderate Republican.
Lee, on the other hand, is one of the most conservative members of the Senate, an unapologetic supporter of Donald Trump, who, according to texts to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, “worked furiously to overturn the 2020 election and keep President Donald Trump in power before ultimately abandoning the effort when no evidence of widespread fraud surfaced and his outreach to states for alternate electors proved futile.”
The willingness of Lee to abandon the basic tenets of democratic rule is hardly unique among his fellow Republicans. The text exchange between Lee and Meadows, as damning as it may be, does not fully depict the lengths to which some of America’s elected leaders will go to subvert their own institutions for personal gain as much as the almost laughable duplicity of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Republicans, all too aware they are the minority party — their House candidates got 5 million less votes in 2020 than Democrats — seem to prefer destroying free elections rather than doing what is necessary to earn the majority’s trust. For this, they require no real program at all but simply to pander to the anger and frustration of a base that is inundated with tales of Hunter Biden’s laptop or Clinton’s emails and then to prevent enough of their opponents from voting to ensure their continued rule. Ironic is that those who cannot stop screaming about rigged elections are the ones who are most trying to rig them.