Don’t make Americans choose democracy or survival
As the congressional January 6 committee geared up for its first televised hearing, the political commentator Matthew Dowd tweeted: “if you think inflation is more important than what happened on January 6th and the ongoing threat to our democracy and our freedoms, then you might want to ask yourself where you would have stood if you were in early 1930s Germany.”
In other words, voters who are more concerned with feeding their families and maintaining what they’ve spent years working for, than with what Donald Trump may have done 18 months ago, are letting modern Nazis come to power. This view dominates the American left. Nothing is more important than litigating the events of last January and preventing anything like them in the future.
The preservation of the American political order matters, especially for the future. But crime and inflation matter now. Average Americans see their bank accounts being drained by skyrocketing prices and their sense of personal security being eroded by crime. They sense a crisis at least as real as, and more dangerous to them and their families than, the “crisis of democracy.”
Many of them see that Donald Trump lost, reacted petulantly and egged on a mob. Then they’ve seen the legal process work, as members of that mob have been brought to justice. They think that Mr. Trump was wrong and has been rightfully criticized — and also that the left and the congressional committee itself are using the “crisis of democracy” to score their own political points.
They need to put food on the table and gas in the tank, run the air conditioner when it’s brutally hot, and go out for a meal once in a while. Many worry they might even lose their jobs. Mr. Dowd, a successful political consultant who enjoys economic security, calls them Nazis.
He gets the rise of Nazism all wrong. Middle-class Germans eventually flocked to Adolf Hitler’s movement not because the Weimar Republic didn’t fight hard enough for the abstract notion of democracy. They did so because their leaders could not solve the problems that plagued their society. At least Hitler promised to do something, anything, differently. And it didn’t hurt that he offered an easy scapegoat, as well.
Telling voters that they shouldn’t care about inflation or crime or shortages of staple items won’t slow the rise of radical politics — on the left or the right. Economic failures threaten the poor and the lower middle class more than anyone. They need leaders who will do something to help them.
By proving that the people in charge are indifferent to the fear and suffering of everyday Americans, such treatment can only accelerate polarization and radicalization. Taking care of the foundation of our democratic system is important, but it won’t matter if people think that system doesn’t take care for their interests.