The dual threat to democracy

I.

When Tom Brady was asked how he became the greatest quarterback of all time despite being among the slowest, least athletic, and at NFL draft pick #199, the least valued recruit, he had a simple response:

“There’s more to quarterbacking than how you throw a fucking ball.”

Being an NFL QB is primarily a leadership position that requires cognitive and social skills — not mere physical ability. Of course, if you can’t throw a ball, that’s disqualifying; you are no quarterback. But throwing well is the bare minimum. Quarterbacking demands so much more.

Similarly, here’s what I say to fellow Democrats who don’t understand why Harris might lose to Trump: there’s more to democracy than fucking voting.

Elections are essential. And the peaceful transfer of power is the sine qua non of democracy. Trump is no democrat, lowercase d, because he only believes in elections that he wins.

That by itself — if Democrats’ hands were clean — would be enough for Trump to lose. But our hands are not clean. Because Trump’s anti-election stance has done more than lose him votes. It has made partisan Democrats crazy: in thrall to a political fundamentalism that justifies any means — even undemocratic means — devoted to the end of stopping Trump.

II.

When Americans say “democracy,” what we really mean is “liberal democracy.” Liberalism and democracy: not just elections and voting, but freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, the rule of law, civil rights and civil liberties.

Indeed, there is a famously American understanding that the right to vote is meaningless without ironclad rights to speech, thought, worship, and a fair trial when you are accused of a crime, which accusation should itself be the result of a fair and impartial investigation.

Speech in particular is paramount.

Language is the midwife of thought. If you take away my right to speak freely, you take away my right to think freely. And if I can’t even think straight, you don’t have to take away my right to vote. I have already lost it.

Democracy isn’t just elections. It is the American constitution, all of its amendments, and everything they stand for.

III.

While the Democratic party’s commitment to general elections is strong, our commitment to everything else democratic has withered in the era of Trump.

Here are just a few examples:

• We canceled several 2024 primary elections, misled the American people about the health of the president, and thereby deprived every young, healthy, talented Democratic governor and senator of an opportunity to run.

• We appointed as Biden’s successor a person who got 0 votes and who lost badly when she did face voters in a primary.

• We pressured social media companies to censor legitimate dissent about COVID-19 policy — and called those ideas ‘disinformation.’

• We pressured social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, which could have swung the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

• As I’ve argued elsewhere, some - though not all - of the cases brought against Donald Trump reflect an abuse of prosecutorial discretion that should never, ever exist in a real democracy.

• And many of our leading thinkers and leaders — Fran Lebowitz, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, just to name a few — now want us to ‘dissolve the Supreme Court’, criminalize incorrect speech, and reconsider the 1st Amendment because it makes it harder to govern.

IV.

Democrats’ abandonment of liberalism in favor of progressivism is really the root of the problem.

Liberalism and liberal democracy are about sacred processes, and legitimate means, that constrain the pursuit of even just and noble ends.

That includes the end of defeating Trump.

If we took liberal democracy seriously — if we believed in the sacred, God-given right of every American to make up their own mind and vote their conscience — we would say, yes, there are many falsehoods on the internet and a demagogue running for president, but we trust the American people to sift through all of the information and decide. And if we disagree with that decision because it is conservative, rather than progressive, that’s OK. We respect it.

Because if you take democracy seriously, you respect voters. Period. Especially when you don’t like them, or don’t agree with their political opinions.

At bottom, the issue plaguing the Democratic party is elitism and a lack of respect.

If Democrats truly respected voters, we would not, like former CNN anchor Don Lemon, tell people who are struggling financially that they are, in fact, doing fine.

Barack Obama - formerly graceful and charming - is becoming a scold in the era of Trump. This week he told young black men that if they don’t vote for Kamala, it’s not because they prefer Trump’s policies, it’s because they are misogynists and bigots.

No one likes to be talked down to.

So you don’t have to be a political genius to notice the current strategy will not work…

V.

I get that many of Trump’s opponents believe Trump will end democracy as we know it. And that those voting for him simply don’t realize what they are voting for.

Even if that is true, which is far from clear to me, the solution is not to lose your shit and prosecute Trump, cancel primaries, and jettison the 1st amendment. All of that makes Democrats look bad and has only empowered Trump. And it is wrong.

The only solution is to make your best case, campaign hard, and then, surrender.

Let go.

Trust in the common sense of our fellow Americans in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. Let them make a decision. And respect that decision — even if you vehemently disagree with it.

If Democrats are unable extend that respect to everyday Americans — who may be less formally ‘educated’ than we are, or disagree with our values — we are no less a threat to democracy than the guy who won’t concede.