I read a Thomas Friedman column this week that really required a smackdown. So I supplied one at New York:
How much political capital should Democrats invest in a probably doomed effort to save the political career of Liz Cheney? Earlier this week, Never Trump Republican Linda Chavez penned a column urging Wyoming Democrats to take a dive this November in order to give the incumbent a chance to survive as an independent, assuming (as it safe) that Cheney will be purged in her own party’s primary. And now, in an apparent coincidence, in comes New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggesting a far more radical step by Democrats to align themselves with the small slice of Republicans who follow Cheney’s example in repudiating Donald Trump. He wrote:
“Is that what America needs in 2024 — a ticket of Joe Biden and Liz Cheney? Or Joe Biden and Lisa Murkowski, or Kamala Harris and Mitt Romney, or Stacey Abrams and Liz Cheney, or Amy Klobuchar and Liz Cheney? Or any other such combination.”
Friedman phrases this as a question, but clearly he thinks it’s a good idea given the “existential moment” America would face if Trump is allowed to regain the presidency in 2024. It’s a bit of a loaded question, too, since it postulates that nothing short of a previously unimaginable “sacrifice” by Democrats and Never Trump Republicans alike can stop Trump — and that it would, in fact, succeed in stopping Trump.
I certainly agree that Democrats dumping Kamala Harris to give their vice-presidential nomination to a conservative Republican who opposes legalized abortion and is a militarist by conviction and heredity would be a “sacrifice,” to put it very mildly. It would also be very, very weird. Friedman cites the recent establishment of a mind-bending coalition government in Israel to thwart Bibi Netanyahu as a development comparable to what he is suggesting. But as he acknowledges, Israel has a parliamentary system in which multiparty coalitions are the rule rather than the exception. A presidential system in which parties invariably run separate tickets for the top job is another thing altogether.
The U.S. has had exactly one example of multiparty fusionism in a presidential election. In 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, Republicans nominated Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee — then serving as U.S. military governor of Tennessee — to run with Lincoln on a “Union” ticket. The experiment did not turn out well, beginning with Johnson’s drunken inaugural address in 1865 and continuing with the racist solidarity he exhibited toward ex-Confederates after Lincoln’s assassination, culminating in his impeachment and near removal from office. There are important reasons politicians sort themselves out into major parties, which should be apparent in an era of polarization over issues other than the scofflaw behavior of Donald Trump.
Is the threat of Trump’s return to the White House the equivalent of the U.S. Civil War? Not in itself, I would contend, though that horrific development could lead eventually to grave conditions comparable if not equal to a civil war. The premise that a Biden-Cheney fusion ticket would uniquely doom Trump to failure is even more dubious. There has never been much evidence of a mass following for Never Trump Republicans, and such as it is, it is mostly composed of people who would (and did in 2020) gladly vote for Biden and Harris. The baleful effect that replacing Harris with Cheney on the ticket would have on Democratic turnout could easily offset or exceed the alleged benefits of bipartisan and trans-ideological fusion.
So Democrats should say thanks, but no thanks, to Friedman for the idea of submitting their party to some sort of unwieldy and unnatural coalition of national salvation, so long as there is the slightest possibility of beating Trump the old-fashioned way. Liz Cheney deserves great respect for the courage she has shown in defying Trump at the expense of her own career, and if Biden is reelected with her support, perhaps she deserves an ambassadorship, a minor Cabinet post, or a major sub-Cabinet position. But she has no business being at the top of the line of succession to a Democratic president.
I’m trying to keep my powder dry, but with the release of the swift boat ads, I’m beginning to think that it’s time MoveOn, or some other 527 make an ad attacking Bush’s VietNam service, starting with the line, “The Republicans spent XX$ producing a political ad attacking Kerry’s military record. Perhaps it’s time we looked at what George W. Bush was doing during the VietNam war…” then they could ask some tough questions about how many men he jumped ahead of to get into the TX natl guard, and how many men were sent to VietNam and died there so that the Shrub could sit on his backside swigging beers at the local cantina missing drills.
Frankly, I think it’s time to get dirty.
Don’t get too antsy, boys and girls. It is still a long way from August to November, and the days grow short in late October. There are two debates coming up. I see a real key here in framing the issues prior to those debates so as to set an agenda for them. I’m expecting at least one question to Kerry about the $87 billion vote, and another on the vote to authorize the Iraq fiasco. That will be when Kerry needs to have the right answers, but he’ll need to be consistent with what he says now. What he has to do now is set up the message to come from those debates and to establish low expectations for himself in those debates and higher expectations for George Bush.
Now if there were only a way to fix things so that someone would ask Bush about sovereignty…
Kerry and company need to stay ahead tho.. and not let Bush set the topic of the day by directing questions at Kerry.. they need to diffuse that nonsense and get Bush on the defensive some more..
Meanwhile, it seems Bush is really vulnerable on nat’l security. Unlike 2002, the more moves he takes, the more America realizes that a lot of time has gone by and yet not a lot has been accomplished. And because it all depends on framing the possibility of terror, which can be interpreted in any way even on the most clear days, there is near inertia in his numbers.
Of course, the sad spectacle of his CIA chief nominee being outspooked by Michael Moore: http://martinirepublic.com/item/cia-chief-nominee-outspooked-by-michael-moore …won’t help with prospective converts, either.