A necessary Democratic strategy

Oh dear! Democrats are trying to hang onto control of the Senate by revealing just how rightwing the Republican Party has become? Can’t have that.

In our very strange politics, former President Donald Trump’s threats of “riots,” “violence in the streets,” “death and destruction” and “bedlam” have been so normalized that they barely make a ripple anymore. But when Democrats engage in a bit of Machiavellian politics involving entirely truthful and quite tame television commercials, the guardians of comity get the vapors.

The dreadful offense in question involves “attack ads” aimed at shining a light on the most extreme, Trump-loving GOP primary candidates in the hope of encouraging the party faithful to nominate these weak general election opponents.

The most recent outbreak of handwringing came in response to the Ohio Senate primary. A super PAC linked to Democrats aired an ad noting that Trump had endorsed businessman Bernie Moreno as “exactly the type of MAGA fighter that we need in the United States Senate” who “would lead the charge to enact Trump’s MAGA agenda to repeal Obamacare and institute a national ban on abortion.”

True, the ad called Moreno “too conservative for Ohio,” but everything else Democrats said about him was music to the ears of many GOP primary voters. And yes, polling suggested that Moreno was the more vulnerable rival to incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, whose victory is vital to Democrats holding their narrow Senate majority.

Democrats might have saved their money, since Moreno overwhelmed his more moderate rival, state Sen. Matt Dolan, 50.5% to 32.9%. Which just goes to show that the GOP really is very rightwing these days, since Dolan had the backing of Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman. Traditional Republicans just aren’t what they used to be.

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

GOP 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 being the most prominent — rejected impeachment and thereby saved Trump’s career.

Electing not-as-bad GOP senators is a poor alternative to holding actual power. That power means, among other things, preventing the judiciary from being overwhelmed by conservatives.

I’m all for alliances that span from the left to the center-right in defense of democracy. Portugal recently had an election in which the far-right Chega party gained substantial ground. But Luis Montenegro, the leader of the center-right party that narrowly won the election, is determined to keep Chega out of government. While the center-left Socialists will oppose Montenegro on a lot of issues, the moderate, pro-democracy parties will cooperate to the extent necessary to preserve democratic stability.

Right now, the GOP is not that sort of center-right party. It has allowed itself to be dominated by Trump. The only way to force the party to transform itself is for far-right Republicans to keep losing races to Democrats like Ohio’s Brown — and, yes, to President Joe Biden.

It’s also important to recognize that the genuine bipartisan achievements of the last Congress — investments in infrastructure and microchip manufacturing, for example — were enabled because Democrats controlled the Senate and could bring bills to the floor. Trump and the GOP had four years to do infrastructure and it never happened. Democrats, a diverse bunch (ideologically and in many other ways), have far more interest in striking bipartisan accords than Republicans do.

Do I long for the days when moderate and even liberal Republicans could thrive and have real influence? You bet. I was a high school liberal Republican myself, about the most boring thing a teenager could be. I admired senators such as John Chafee, the great environmentalist Republican from Rhode Island. If I lived in Wyoming, I would have crossed over in 2022 and voted for Liz Cheney in her GOP primary. I’ll always appreciate the late Sen. John McCain and Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for saving Obamacare.

But the larger picture now is clear: A better kind of Republicanism is not possible as long as most of the party genuflects to Trump. This means the victory of the odd moderate conservative here or there will not change things. A little hardball in pursuit of the power needed to defeat Trumpism is not hypocrisy. It’s a necessity.