I’ve been sympathetic, if only contingently, to Republican squalling concerning Democratic meddling in Republican primary contests. Shouldn’t each Party be permitted to select its nominees without interference? There’s even a parallel to draw with the Russian interference in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential contests.
But E. J. Dionne, Jr. of WaPo brings a countering argument:
The knock on Democrats is that they’re being hypocrites. They’re lifting up champions of the sort of politics the party has set its face against.
The charge might hold some water if center-right Republicans could be counted on to stand up to Trump consistently. The problem: More moderate GOP conservatives have proved repeatedly that, when it matters, they will fall in line behind Trump.
Witness the behavior of Republican Senate leadership during Trump’s second impeachment trial. Yes, seven honorable Republicans voted to impeach Trump and thereby put an end to his political career. Bless every one of them. But their seven votes were not enough, and even GOP senators who were sharply critical of Trump — Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) being the most prominent — rejected impeachment and thereby saved Trump’s career.
In other words, Republican primary voters, despite Democratic operatives’ efforts, still have a choice, are responsible for that choice, and thus are symptomatic of the state of the Republican Party. If they were nominating moderate Republicans, thus thwarting the Democrats’ efforts to put vulnerable, far-right extremists up as nominees, then we’d know the Republican Party is making the effort to be a responsible governing Party.
But it’s not. The Republican primary voters are more than willing to put such fourth-rater, performative morality “politicians” as Gaetz, Greene, Santos, Johnson, McCarthy, and literally dozens more up for election to some of the most important positions in the nation. The Democrats efforts merely, at best, pushes those who already lead, or are in a competitive position, over the top.
That the Democrats can, arguably, achieve this much is a measure of the moral depravity – sorry, folks, but that’s how it looks from outside the epistemic bubble – of the Republican Party primary voters.
And Dionne’s argument serves, I think, as an able justification for Democratic “meddling.”
