Dem
47
GOP
53
A couple of weeks ago, we asked readers if they would like us to add a weekly feature about people fighting the good fight for democracy, at a time when democracy is under attack.
Before we report the results, we will explain that when we ask readers "Should we do [X]?," a baseline result is something like 65% yes, 35% no. Put another way, people who like the idea are considerably more likely to click through and vote, whereas people who dislike the idea are less likely to do so. Consequently, we would only give serious consideration to the idea if support was substantially north of 65%. As it turns out, we need not have concerned ourselves with handicapping the results. Support for the idea was... quite substantial. That is to say, the "ayes" were... 97.6% of the vote. That's really a staggering result. Almost as lopsided as a Russian election.
That means that we need to pick a name for the new feature. We went through the multiple thousands of suggestions, picked the ones that we liked, added some that were clearly popular, and then added a couple ideas of our own. Here are the 25 finalists that this process produced:
If you would care to vote for your favorites, the survey is here.
And as long as we are on the subject, some of the small minority who opposed this idea left messages like this one:
Many, many years ago (during the Obama years), you made at least some attempt to be somewhat down the middle, and fair and balanced. But Trump broke you guys when he was first elected in 2017. It's a damn shame, as I would say you were the first site to use the electoral college maps to show who was winning. Now, everyone does that. I read you less and less, as you have minimal objectivity. I'm sure you don't care that I barely read your site anymore, but there you go.
When Barack Obama and John McCain were facing off against each other in 2008, they were playing by the same rules, and they both adhered to the same basic standards of both propriety and decency. Recall, for example, McCain's famous remarks about how Obama is a decent man, just one who has different ideas. When politics is simply a contest of different ideas and of different strategies, it is very plausible to be "fair and balanced." It is very easy to say, "This candidate has adopted this position, and they are doing so to appeal to this constituency" and "That candidate has made that strategic choice, and that might not work out for this reason."
However, Trumpism is not just about different ideas and different strategies. It's that, too, but it's also about a fundamental lack of respect for half the people in the country (or more), for democracy, and for the rule of law. It's about demagoguery, and corruption, and selfishness. Writing pieces that look askance at those behaviors is not about Democrats vs. Republicans, it's about democracy and decency vs. autocracy and indecency. The rule of law is not partisan. Sometimes people with a (D) are on the wrong side of the law. Eric Adams is a corrupt sleazeball, and the party with which he is registered does not change that. Bob Menendez (D) and Rod Blagojevich (D) are also Democrats we have hounded endlessly in the past for their corruption.
Sometimes people with an (R) are on the right side of the law. Liz Cheney (R) and Adam Kinzinger (R) leap to mind, and we've written about them many times. Or, if you would like a more recent example, Danielle Sassoon. She is not an elected politician, but she is definitely a Republican who called her former boss and idol, Antonin Scalia, "the real deal." We commended her bravery earlier this week—that's not partisan.
When a political faction is quite clearly doing things that are wrong, and lawless, and immoral, then a "neutral" posture isn't actually neutral, it's a posture of passive acquiescence to the wrongdoers. At a certain point, there were not two valid points of view in pre-World War II Germany, or the Civil Rights-era South, or South Africa during apartheid. It is clear to us that we have arrived at that point in 21st century American history, and so we must adjust. Anyone who thinks it's actually possible to give both sides of the story, these days, should take a long look at The Washington Post or The Los Angeles Times. How's that working out for them?
Or, let's put it this way: We would love NOTHING more than to do the site the way we did it back in 2004 or 2008. We do not like writing items like "Today's Crazypants Roundup." Nonetheless, write them we do. And we do so in hope that we can contribute, in some small way, to getting the U.S. political system back on track. If that somehow happens, then we can go back to doing the site we used to do. But at the moment, we are in a political context where that bygone version of Electoral-Vote.com literally cannot exist. At this point in history, Democrats have more respect for the rule of law than Republicans. That's the Trumpers' fault, not ours. But we will do our best, especially in the new feature, to highlight Republicans who when faced with a choice between right and wrong choose right, even if that is not the party line. (V & Z)