Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.
...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).
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Notes -
One of the nefarious stratagems the Democratic Party engaged in this election was to intentionally boost and generously fund far-right Republican candidates over their more moderate opponents in the Republican primaries. This potentially risky gambit was intended to allow Democratic candidates to coast to an easy victory by knocking out the moderate Republican option from the general election. This strategy was not just an after-thought, as the Dems put in a ton of resources into the effort. In Maryland for example, the Dems spent $1.2 million on Dan Cox's campaign, more than twice the money the candidate raised at that point. I thought then and still think this is dishonorable and contemptible behavior, but from a pure power play perspective, I concede it was a sound tactical decision. All six Republican candidates (3 governors, 1 senator, 2 house) targeted by this play lost the general election, five of them by double-digit margins.
It's important to emphasize that the Dems didn't force Republicans to do anything. All they did was dangle the candidate's Republican bona fides with "oh no it sure would be terrible if this person that loves Trump and still thinks the election was stolen ends up being the nominee oh no" and voters agreed with them. Given how much of a resounding success this was for the Dems, I anticipate we'll see it again in the future.
If so, can the GOP do anything to immunize itself from this effort? Should it even try to? Also, two can play at this game but is this strategy something the GOP can successfully levy? Dems have no shortage of total crazies (as Libs of TikTok can demonstrate) after all. What would that look like and what are some candidates that come to mind?
I agree that we'll see it again, but strongly disagree that 'all they did' was dangle. Active interference with the internal workings of the opposition party isn't a bad idea in a functioning democracy because it 'forces' the opposition to do anything- it's because the purpose of such an intervention is to prevent the opposition from doing anything by keeping them out of power. The distinction is like claiming an induced convulsion doesn't prevent your muscles from working, and so isn't the same effect as induced paralysis. Steering crowds towards known allergens in a buffet and then deliberately making the alternatives look worse doesn't change a dynamic of food tampering just because someone could have chosen a different item. The actions taken were intended for an effect, and the moral onus of the effect lies with the person who instigated the action with the intent to cause that effect.
The fact that it works is not new. The reasons why it shouldn't be done are not new either. Even 'minimal' active interference in the internal workings of the opposition is a bad idea because it's the precedent/catalyst for more and other forms of active interference, the consistent success of which builds upon itself turns an opposition party into a state-managed (as opposed to state-run) opposition.
This is generally understood in other contexts to be a pretty banal means for authoritarians to degrade and defang democratic opposition parties.
The answer to the first is yes. You can immunize yourself to foreign influences by ruthlessly purging people associated with the influence vectors and, as possible, actively targetting the sources of influence until they can not or will not attempt further influence efforts along those lines. Since it is quite profitable for them to do so, targetting will be need to be highly coercive, and involve some mix of targeted violence, intimidation, and other forms of retaliation against not only the organizers, but their associates and friends and allies, until such people are isolated even within their own alliance networks and unable to execute and no one will want to be seen as emulating them. Such a campaign will need to sustained, actively circumvent efforts of the state dominated by the opposing party to prevent it, and generate popular momentum to continue targetting these people who happen to be fellow citizens of the country.
The answer to the second is that obviously many people, and not just those positively inclined towards the ruling party, would rather the opposition party not do that.
I'm so confused by this comment. What did the democrats do beyond presenting options to the primary voters who then voted for those options? Those voters weren't prevented from voting for whoever they like, they simply liked the nutbags. Hell, Trump is a free actor. He could have endorsed moderates, and chose not to. Who was prevented from doing anything? There's a lot of darkly hinting at sinister actions but not much evidence.
I don't even think Dems needed to lie about their intentions or beliefs. They put up ads like "Cox is too consistently conservative for Maryland", which they really believed (and the recent election suggests they were correct to believe that). There's nothing wrong with advertising your beliefs.
I joked with my wife that Mastriano was the Yes-Chad candidate, or the This-But-Unironically campaign. Most "attack ads" against Mastriano were just him responding to a question like "Should abortion be legal?" with an answer like "No, absolutely not, no exceptions."
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