Democratic voters have another chance to deal a big blow to Trumpism. Will they?

Democratic voters have another chance to deal a big blow to Trumpism. Will they?

Opinion by Greg Sargent

Columnist

Today at 4:48 p.m. EDT

The Virginia gubernatorial contest is turning in part on the GOP’s continued enthrallment to the obsessions of Donald Trump and his movement. As we’ve noted, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe has attacked GOP foe Glenn Youngkin for opposing public health requirements on covid-19 and for humoring Trump’s election lies, positions Youngkin hopes will keep Trump voters engaged.

Now the New York Times reports that something similar is happening in New Jersey. Incumbent Democratic governor Phil Murphy is hammering Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli over his lurid fearmongering over covid mandates and his embrace of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement, which is still holding rallies, one of which Ciattarelli attended.

It’s sometimes said Democrats in these races are “tying their opponents to Trump.” But the reality is more complicated. Democrats are making a bet that what Republicans must do to keep GOP voters engaged in the post-Trump era can be turned to Democrats’ advantage: The GOP need to minister to those Trumpian obsessions can be marshaled to get Democratic voters angry and engaged, in a manner that Trump himself did.

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The subtleties of all this emerge from a new interview that the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Sean Maloney (N.Y.), gave to “Pod Save America.” In it, Maloney acknowledged House Democrats lost seats in 2020 in part because Trump drove massive turnout among “low-propensity conservative voters.”

But Maloney also noted that it’s an open question whether they will turn out in 2022 without Trump on the ballot. He argued that the shift of educated and suburban voters to Democrats could help, since those voters tend to turn out in midterms, potentially mitigating the dynamic in which the out-of-power party swamps the in-power party in turnout.

All this is well understood. But the less obvious point is that GOP candidates continue to traffic in derangement around covid mandates and around Trump’s continuing lies about 2020 to compensate for Trump’s absence from the ballot. If GOP voters can’t vote for Trump, perhaps they can be wound up into a white-hot fury by his movement’s continuing obsessions.

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Which provides an opening for Democrats to exploit. As Maloney explained, if Democrats can get President Biden’s agenda passed, they will be able to run both on a record of achievement and against the dangers posed by ongoing GOP radicalization.

“The other side is for insurrection while we’re trying to do infrastructure” is how Maloney described the message that he’s suggesting to Democratic House candidates. On covid mandates and the insurrection, Maloney said, “Republicans have real vulnerability on how dangerous and reckless they’ve been, particularly in swing districts.”

It’s widely understood by Democrats that their midterm hopes turn largely on whether the pandemic is defeated, which will dictate the trajectory of our economic and national recovery. It’s also widely understood that failure to pass Biden’s agenda would be catastrophic: Maloney said key provisions such as the expanded child tax credit and investments in infrastructure will be critical to Democrats in competitive seats.

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But that’s not all that will matter. In 2018, Democrats won the House, and in 2020 they won the White House and Senate, due in part to turnout juiced up by fury at Trump. In the Georgia runoffs, Republicans struggled to boost turnout (without Trump on the ballot) by aggressively feeding his lies about the election, but Democratic turnout surged, probably partly in response to the ongoing GOP assault on democracy.

Something similar may happen now. With Republicans aggressively feeding Trumpian radicalization to compensate for Trump’s absence from the ballot, a key question is whether that will inspire a counter-mobilization among Democratic voters.

As Maloney put it, winning in this cycle will require Democrats to “invalidate the other choice.” He added:

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Whether you’re talking about storming the Capitol, and asking us to look the other way while a bunch of cops got hurt and killed, whether you’re taking about spreading dangerous conspiracy theories like QAnon, or getting in the way of our efforts to get the vaccine out and end the pandemic … the other side is a dangerous group of people.

Given the deep damage that Trumpist politics continues to do — from stoking rabid civil conflict around sensible public health measures to dramatically undermining faith in our political system — let’s hope this fall’s gubernatorial races do show that Democrats are energized by all this. Not just because it might bode well for keeping Republicans out of power, but also because it would send a message that this form of politics is being decisively repudiated.