A close shave for democracy
The revelations about George Santos, who was elected in November to represent Long Island’s 3rd Congressional District, fabricating much of his life story are only the latest indication that the midterm elections were not the success members of the Democratic party and mainstream media claim they were. Many observers contend that American democracy was saved on Nov. 8. A more accurate representation is that our republic was taken off life-support but remains in intensive care.
Going into the election, democracy was truly on the ropes. But with Republicans regaining control of the House of Representatives–granted, with one of the slimmest (222 to 213) margins in history–while the Democrats held onto to the U.S. Senate, the match was essentially a draw.
Because much of the national media had been predicting a “red wave” (based in part, it turns out, on some unreliable partisan polls), many called the midterms a victory for the Democrats. However, with no knockout in sight, the fight went the distance and the outcome was a split decision at best. Regardless of how anyone calls it, because so many races in swing states involving defeated election-deniers were close–like 51% to 49% close–democracy still hangs in the balance and much of the fault belongs to the Democratic party.
The midterms would look much different if the Democrats had not retained the Senate, and they did so by a whisker. In Nevada, which gave the Democrats their 50th seat, incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto won with 48.8%, versus 48% for election-denying Adam Laxalt, a difference of 7,928 votes. In Arizona, Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly defeated his election-denying opponent 51.4% to 46.5%. In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, whose victory represented the Democrats’ lone pickup, won 51.2% to 46.3% over Trump-endorsed celebrity Republican Mehmet Oz.
Raphael Warnock’s reelection in the Georgia runoff gives the Democrats a 51-49 majority, which means they won’t always have to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to break tie votes and will have majorities on Senate committees. But Warnock’s 51.4% to 48.6% margin over Herschel Walker, one of the most unfit Senate candidates ever, suggests the Democrats’ hold on that chamber remains tenuous. While they’ll no longer need the vote of both unashamedly pro-corporate Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to maintain a majority, Democrats will still need one of them. Sinema’s switch to independent (while maintaining she’ll continue to caucus with the Democrats)–an obvious attempt to avoid likely defeat in a Democratic primary in 2024 while improving the odds a Republican will take her seat if she ends up splitting the vote with a Democrat in that race–means she’ll be all that less reliable an ally on progressive legislation.
Such Democratic “success” hardly adds up to a mandate. The story is even worse with the House: it appears the Democrats had a much better chance of retaining control than most observers projected. In rock-solid blue New York, the Republicans flipped four seats. These gains were due largely to the weakness of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was susceptible to charges of pay-to-play corruption, and the state party overall, coming off the scandals of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. Voters of all ideological stripes are sick and tired of corruption, which has been rampant under one-party rule in New York (not that Republicans have the cleanest of hands either).
In this context, the Santos scandal is a case study in what’s wrong with our so-called democracy. He lied about his education, work experience and heritage, claiming that, although raised Catholic, he was of Jewish ancestry. (Outed, Santos is now saying he is “Jew-ish.”) Reporting by The Intercept suggests that GOP funders may have known about the candidate’s liabilities prior to the election and, although the campaign manager for Santos’s opponent said they “worked hard” to publicize the “deceptive claims and shady financial dealings” of Santos’s past, one has to wonder about the effectiveness of Democratic “oppo” research, not to mention the local media. As for the electorate, it seems many Republicans would vote for a toadstool over a Democrat.
In swing states, Trump-backed election-deniers lost key races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state. But the close-shave results of many suggest that the 2024 presidential-election results could easily have been tampered with if the Democratic nominee defeated Trump or another Republican. A constitutional crisis and democracy itself would’ve hung in the balance.
Post-midterms, many blame Trump and the poor quality of candidates he supported in the primaries–typically over more establishment types who presumably would’ve fared better on Nov. 8. However, what many observers fail to see is the Democrats’ lost opportunity to buck historical trends by keeping the House plus the Senate–the reasons for which also underlie the rise of the Far-Right long before Trump took his famous escalator ride in 2015 to declare his presidential candidacy.
The root cause of the rise of Trump, the MAGA takeover of the GOP and election-denialism is that democracy no longer works for many Americans. We have two major parties that mainly serve corporations, the wealthy and other elites. Beginning with Clinton’s presidency, the Democratic party began abandoning working-class voters in favor of Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the college-educated class. This trend was accelerated during Obama’s administration. The Democrats, largely to compete with GOP fundraising from corporations, moved to the right, and Republicans countered by moving further to the right–from Reagan to Newt Gingrich to George W. Bush and finally Trump.
If one factor distinguishes democracy from fascism it is that when candidates lose an election, they accept defeat and cooperate with the political system, if not the victors, until the next election. With the midterms, enough Americans woke up to the realization that this distinction was no longer cherished by a large swath of the Republican electorate and a slew of their candidates. We may not be so lucky the next time.
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Fred Balzac, a former member of the Essex County Democratic Committee, is currently active with the High Peaks chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. He lives in Saranac Lake.
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Sources
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2022 Elections. Politico, Dec. 29, 2022. (https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results, accessed Jan. 2, 2023)
2022 Midterm Elections. AP News, Jan. 2, 2023. (https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections, accessed Jan. 2, 2023)
Kruse, Michael. “The Elevator Ride That Changed America.” Politico, June 14, 2019. (ttps://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/14/donald-trump-campaign-announcement-tower-escalator-oral-history-227148, accessed Jan. 2, 2023)
Lacy, Akela. “Did Republicans Know About George Santos Before the Election?” The Intercept, Dec. 24, 2022. (https://theintercept.com/2022/12/24/george-santos-election-republicans, accessed Dec. 30, 2022)
Office of the Nevada Secretary of State. Silver State 2022 General Election Results. (https://silverstateelection.nv.gov/USSenate, accessed Jan. 2, 2023.)