The Dog That Didn't Bark
The 2022 midterms were supposed to be a serious threat to American democracy ... but the opposite happened. They made American democracy stronger (for now).
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.
Quick piece of housekeeping. Yesterday was Cyber Monday, so all this week, I’m offering a special discount to new paid subscribers - 20% off the yearly subscription price. That means it’s $40 a year for all Truth and Consequences content. What a bargain, right?
As I mentioned last week, I’m starting a new feature in the Musical Interlude called “Today in Bob Dylan.” And to get things started, I asked Ben Burrell, producer of the fantastic podcast “Bob Dylan: Album by Album,” to join me for Friday’s Zoom Chat. I could not be more excited about this one. I love Ben’s podcast, and I can’t wait to talk all things Dylan with him on Friday. So make a note, get some rest, and I’ll see you then for what should be a great conversation. Here’s the Zoom link. Now, on to the news …
The System Worked … Again
I have a strange confession: I’ve recently been thinking a lot about Doug Mastriano. Considering that during the midterm campaign, I made a point of disparaging Mastriano’s lackluster campaign for Governor in Pennsylvania, I imagine this sounds a bit discordant … but allow me to explain.
Mastriano was one of the most prominent election-denier candidates in the country. On social media, he pushed and promoted election lies more than 100 times. He organized a bus trip to Washington on January 6 and was on the Capitol ground as the insurrection unfolded. In the Pennsylvania state legislature, he spearheaded an effort to audit the 2020 election results, which led to him being stripped of his committee chairmanship.
Yet, after losing his gubernatorial race to Democrat Josh Shapiro, he publicly and gracefully conceded defeat.
Mastriano was not the only prominent 2020 election-denier candidate who had to take their medicine. Blake Masters in Arizona, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, and Adam Laxalt in Nevada all did it too. Same with Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Tim Michels in Wisconsin. With the notable exception of Kari Lake in Arizona, Republican candidates, pretty much across the board, publicly conceded defeat.
Best of all, most of the prominent election-denying candidates had no other option. Over and over again, candidates who refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election were sent packing by an electorate with no time and patience for such attitudes.
All of this contrasts sharply with the doom-saying that preceded the November 8 election. Repeatedly, we were told that American democracy stood on the knife’s edge and that voters were more focused on gas prices and inflation than they were on the future of the republic. In fairness, these doomsday scenarios might have had the desired effect — and convinced just enough voters that they should take civic issues seriously and reject candidates who stood too far outside the mainstream. But it’s important to acknowledge that when all was said and done, the voters and, eventually, the election-denying candidates (for the most part) did the right thing.
I’ll be honest; I’m not all that surprised by any of this, particularly the willingness of candidates like Mastriano to accept defeat. I’ve made the point repeatedly that for Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, he failed miserably — mainly because fellow Republicans refused to go along with his plan. Moreover, with precious few exceptions, his White House staff, the attorney general, virtually the entire Department of Justice, and the vice president not only rejected Trump’s theories, several of them actively thwarted his efforts.
In Georgia, Republican officials not only stood up to Trump, but they also dimed him out for trying to pressure them. In Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, state GOP leaders refused to help Trump and certified the 2020 election. Many of them would still enable Trump’s hare-brained conspiracy theories — and play to the crazed beliefs of his most loyal supporters — by refusing to publicly declare that Joe Biden had legitimately won the presidency. There is no defense of such behavior, but it’s one thing to talk cynically and cowardly in pursuit of political advantage … and another to act on it. When push came to shove, virtually none of them were willing to proactively undermine the nation’s sacred political traditions. I don’t think it’s that complicated as to why — political norms are difficult to violate (if you’re not a malignant narcissist like Donald Trump). No candidate wants to look like a sore loser, and, as we’ve seen repeatedly, very few want to take the proactive step of overturning the will of the electorate. The story of the GOP’s political odyssey with Trump has been one of repeated cowardice, not concrete steps to assist in his nefarious goals.
This doesn’t mean that American democracy is on completely solid ground. There are plenty of reasons for concern, but many other dogs that people expected to bark this cycle didn’t. For example, newly enacted voting restrictions didn’t appear to have had a notable impact on key elections (Georgia being the most prominent example).
Republican election-denying secretary-of-state candidates all lost. It was always a long shot that state Republican officials would overturn the results of the 2024 election on behalf of Trump, and now it’s hard to see any state where it could happen. That these candidates received so many votes — and that these election restrictions continue to exist — is not a good thing. Neither are the gerrymandered congressional districts that enabled Republicans to take control of the House of Representatives. The fact that the Supreme Court basically stopped enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, which allowed GOP-controlled state legislatures in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas to increase their congressional margin, is a much more serious democratic threat. But regular readers of this newsletter know that I believe the current Supreme Court is the gravest present threat to American democracy (and it’s not remotely close).
Part of the reason that the current SCOTUS is so dangerous is that it’s completely unaccountable — not by voters, not by Congress, and as a result, not by long-standing judicial norms and traditions. It’s a rogue force within the confines of America’s democratic institutions. But if there is one positive takeaway from the 2020 midterm (among many), it’s that when there is democratic accountability, when politicians can’t hide behind lifetime appointments, and when voters have their say, it can occasionally lead to positive civic outcomes. America, F**k Yeah!!
What’s Going On
Here’s something concerning — the former president of the United States having dinner with a couple of anti-Semites, Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, a 24-year-old white supremacist and Holocaust denier.
Somehow American Jewish supporters of Trump are surprised by this.
As usual, Josh Hawley is a profile in courage.
Though give Mitt Romney credit for calling out Trump.
I’m starting to get the feeling that Elon Musk has no idea what he’s doing.
Smart piece by Michael Kazin on the genius of Nancy Pelosi.
This is a good argument that the GOP’s messaging shift from inflation to crime was a significant tactical error …
… except in New York, where it worked pretty well.
Musical Interlude
Since I’m doing a “This Day in Bob Dylan” section, it requires me to link to my favorite Bob Dylan song, which also appears on my favorite Dylan record — “Visions of Johanna.”
Wiser people than me have written virtual Ph.D. theses on the song’s lyrics, so I won’t bore you with my musings. For me, what makes this song so special is the music. I love Dylan’s acoustic guitar on this song, particularly the insistent strumming fills that heighten the song’s tension. His vocal performance is also top-notch. The way he sings, “but Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles,” elongating the last eight words is fantastic.
Al Kooper’s muted organ fills are, as usual, sublime, but for me, the real highlight is Kenny Buttrey’s phenomenal drum work. Every choice he makes here is the right one. His drumming drives the song — it’s the most consistent instrument in the mix, yet it is oddly subtle at the same time. There is, at various points, almost a toe-tapping funkiness to them. I particularly like how he plays the cymbals during Dylan’s harmonica breaks. As great as Dylan’s lyrics are (and they are among his best), the sonic elements make Visions one of his greatest songs, and Buttery is the musical star on this number.
This is one of my favorite Bob Dylan moments. In 1991, Dylan was honored at the Grammy’s with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The event took place days before US forces went to war against Iraq in the Gulf War, so it was a period of heightened patriotism and, to some extent, jingoism. So what did Dylan do? He delivered a hard-driven, basically incomprehensible 3:35 version of his anti-war classic “Masters of War.”
I remember watching this live, slack-jawed, with my college roommates and having no idea what song he was singing. Was this a political protest? Or was it Dylan’s way of pissing over anything that he viewed as a cultural and political contrivance? I still have no idea, and Dylan’s deeply enigmatic acceptance speech only confused things further.
In a way, it’s almost too on the nose for Dylan to sing a protest song about war days before a war begins. That is its own contrivance. That he chose to sing the song so that nobody could understand the words or even recognize the song … that is very Bob Dylan. “I’m going to sing a protest song but not in the way anyone might expect.”
To me, it’s emblematic of Dylan’s stalwart devotion to his artistic vision and his refusal to cater to anyone’s idea of who or what he should be — and that includes critics, the music business, and even his fans. But, of course, I’m spitballing. I don’t know why he did it or whether there was some grand thought process behind it. But for me, it’s a reminder that no artist embodies the rebellious element of rock ‘n roll quite like Bob Dylan.