trigger warning: this post discusses the election
Hello and welcome to election hell. I write & therefore read about politics for several of my many jobs, so in my personal time, I like to whine about the things other people say about the election. Today, I’ve brought that energy here.
You may remember January 6th not-so-fondly, and you might be afraid of another Trump term. You may be slightly nervous that it’s the end of American Democracy, or you may be downright terrified. I’m in the latter camp, and I’m not even that much of a Constitution fangirl (I rarely read anything written by men). And still, I can’t help but feel like we’re talking a little too much about democracy.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs describes this idea that certain needs must be met before others even stand a chance. The original theory asserts we need shelter, comfort, and physical safety before we can self-actualize, which makes sense to me. I’ve never self-actualized on the subway. The democracy-centric version—the one we’re starting to hear this election cycle—asserts the US needs Democracy Above All Else.
Trump will be bad for democracy. It’s a sentiment that’s both true and broadcast broadly. We hear all the time that Biden can run, should run, and is running on “Dobbs & Democracy,” that if we keep hammering home the democratic threat, we’ll be set. How many loud Never Trumpers were born on January 6th, how frequent are the warnings that this election could be our last, how often has the media repeated Trump’s quote that he would be a “dictator on day one?” The “Democracy Above All Else” argument is thick.
The only problem is that last quote, though, is that it’s not exactly what he said. He said he’d “only” be a dictator on day one, and to be honest, he kinda said it as a joke. Do I think it’s appropriate for the Republican frontrunner to make jokes about being a dictator? No. I actually think men should be banned from making jokes, in general. Do I think being a dictator for even one day is okay? No. But I really can’t abide taking Trump lines out of context, not when there are so many things he says in context that make him look as horrible as he is. Trump really doesn’t require any spin.
More to the point, I don’t think the “dictator on day one” is even the most alarming part of the quote. Here’s what happened: Sean Hannity asked him if he was going to be a dictator, and Trump said:
“No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”
Listen, the quote is all-around bad, but honestly, I’m more worried about the “drilling, drilling, drilling” and the suggestion he’d deprive people of their human right to amnesty (although, um, he’s not exactly the only 2024 presidential candidate in that land). Unfortunately, those are less splashy. “Dictator Day 1”—that’s attention-grabbing. That’s clickable.
The quote is a microcosm of my larger worry: that if Democrats keep making the argument that Trump can’t be reelected because democracy won’t survive him, we may lose people who should vote for Biden for policy-related reasons but don’t hear enough about them. It’s definitely a “why not both?” situation, but it’s also something of a zero-sum game, because time is a zero-sum game. Voters will only listen to so much. There’s an opportunity cost to “Democracy Above All Else.”
I’m not alone in this fear. David Axelrod said recently: “I suspect that if you’re sitting around the kitchen table talking about the future of democracy, you’re not worried about the cost of the food you’re eating.” I agree, but I would extend this beyond voters who are concerned about inflation and the economy. And if you’re thinking, “we can’t talk about Trump’s policies, because he doesn’t have them,” I would direct you to Project 2025, the promises of tax cuts he made to a bunch of billionaires, the encouragement that Russia to attack our allies.
Policies are no less important than democracy. Liz Cheney—one of those Republicans who turned on Trump after January 6th, which means she was still with him when he told everyone to drink bleach—recently said: “We can survive bad policies. We can't survive a president who goes to war with the Constitution.” Except that… plenty of people don’t survive bad policies, if those bad policies mean they don’t have access to healthcare, or they get murdered overseas, or they get shot by a cop. Democracy isn’t as tangible of an argument as abortion, when Roe has already been overturned. It’s not as tangible an argument as immigration, when Trump just instructed Congress to tank a border bill. It’s not as tangible a problem as global warming, when Florida is becoming uninsurable. It’s not that Democracy isn’t a problem, it’s that it’s not in our faces.
And when Liz Cheney warns that our democracy can’t survive a Trump presidency, she’s ignoring the obvious: it already did. Trump actually did leave office. He’s not the President anymore. The power changed hands, if not peacefully, then at least completely. And if the threat is that this time is different, this time he’ll really steal the election, then there’s no point in voting anyway. It’s a little bit stupid to tell people not to vote for someone because he won’t accept the results of the votes. In that case, voting is just a waste of time. Go take a nap. Spend time with your kids. Clean your car.
And finally, the main reason I don’t think we should prioritize the “Democracy Above All Else” argument is that our democracy isn’t that great to begin with. No offense. Why does Wyoming have as many senators as California? California has at least 10% more people. Why is it that 85% of Americans support IVF, but the Alabama Supreme Court can still make it illegal? Why have Democratic Presidential candidates gotten more votes in seven of the last eight elections, but only won five times? Trump didn’t invent these problems. There’s been a centuries-long systemic effort to undermine democracy and put more power in the hands of the executive branch. If we treat Trump like a singular threat to democracy, then we run the risk of assuming the battle has been won once he’s defeated at the ballot box.
I’m worried about democracy too. And so are you, I bet, if you’re still reading this. A December Gallup poll found only 28% of Americans said they were satisfied with the way democracy is working. I find Trump’s threats to democracy terrifying. I totally think Trump could end democracy (and if he doesn’t, I think JD Vance will). I’m alarmed that he still stands a very good shot of returning to the White House. And I know you can’t just separate policy and democracy. We cannot have fair policy if Trump doesn’t allow for fair elections. In a system in which an authoritarian threatens the press, the electorate cannot be informed enough to choose candidates who align with their policy preferences.
At the same time, if not for the media coverage of January 6th, I’m not sure I would have known it was such a big deal. In fact, in the weeks after, I felt like I might be losing my mind a little. I worried maybe I’d missed something, maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I was still hung up on the drinking bleach thing.
But maybe it wasn’t a lack of attention to January 6th. It was too much attention to the rest of Trump’s presidency. It was that January 6th wasn’t shocking at all; it was the logical end-result (or, as might unfortunately become the case, medium-result) of a man determined to stay in power at all costs.
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Totally agree. Democracy’s a political dud.