I’m at the America chapter of How Democracy Dies now.
For Republicans entering the general election of 2016, the implications were clear. If Trump threatened basic democratic principles, they had to stop him. To do anything else would put democracy at risk, and losing democracy is far worse than losing an election. This meant doing what was, to many, the unthink-able: backing Hillary Clinton for president. The United States has a two-party system; only two candidates stood a chance to win the 2016 election, and one of them was a demagogue. For Republicans, it tested their political courage. Would they ac-cept short-term political sacrifice for the good of the country?
As we showed carlier, there is a precedent for such behavior.
In 2016, Austran conservatives backed Green Party candidate
Alexander Van der Bellen to prevent the election of far-right radical Norbert Hofer. And in 2017, defeated French conserva-tive candidate François Fillon called on his partisans to vote for center-left candidate Emmanuel Macron to keep far-right candidate Marine Le Pen out of power. In both these cases, right-wing politicians endorsed ideological rivals-angering much of the party base but redirecting substantial numbers of their voters to keep extremists out of power.
Well, I didn’t think about it much back then, but as far back as 2008 or maybe even 1996, plenty of people, including me, knew that, of course the Republicans would choose winning over maintaining a democracy. That should have been a warning that was heeded with action, but you would have looked crazy if you said democracy is at stake at that point.