The conflict between preventing harm and winning elections

When is it okay to “heighten the contradictions”, to allow bad things to happen for the sake of instigating political change?  I’ve been noodling on this problem for decades without making much progress, and Trump’s victory has forced me to dig in once again.  This is my current thinking, for what it’s worth. 

Democrats have two overriding goals in the coming Trump era.  The first is to prevent Trump from harming vulnerable people and from doing too much damage to the country as a whole.  The second is to win elections, initially the 2026 contest for the House, and then the 2028 general election. 

At times, these objectives align, but there can be a conflict between blocking harmful policies and gaining an electoral advantage.  The Democrats’ best hope for winning elections may be to let Trump pursue some of his most mean-spirited and hare-brained policy ideas, ideas which seem likely to prove unpopular.  Give him the rope he needs to hang himself.  Let’s call this “strategic restraint”.

I am not generally a fan of allowing bad things to happen, often to vulnerable people, for the sake of instigating political change.  Some policies are so bad that no plausible electoral advantage could justify allowing them.  Even for policies that are not intolerable, the harm from allowing bad policies is often short-run and reasonably likely to occur, while the electoral benefits to Democrats, though potentially important, occur in the future and are often much less certain.  For example, there is a reasonable chance the Republicans will lose the House in 2026 even if Democrats do everything in their power to protect vulnerable groups, and there is a reasonable chance the Republicans will keep the House even if Democrats allow the innocent to suffer.  Any potential electoral benefits from allowing Trump to pursue bad policies need to be discounted to reflect the fact that allowing Trump free rein may not alter the outcome of future elections.  This suggests we should be very cautious about allowing Trump to do his worst.* 

Still, the Democrats’ surest path to electoral success may be to let Trump pursue at least some of his unpopular policy ideas, even if Democrats oppose these policies on the merits.

To see this, note that, historically, Democrats have often done what they believe is right even when this works to the political advantage of their Republican opponents.  Republicans let the economy suffer from inadequate demand for years under Obama.  This surely contributed to Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016.  When the shoe was on the other foot, Democrats spent trillions of dollars to keep the economy afloat under Trump during covid, and Trump came very close to winning a second term in 2020.  Democrats blocked Trump’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  If covid had not happened, Trump would have been favored for re-election.  A repeal of the ACA would have been the single most important act that could have tipped the 2020 election to the Democrats (it is hard to think of anything the Democrats could have said or done to win in 2020 without covid, given the strength of the economy).  Democrats blocked efforts to privatize Social Security under Bush, and efforts to cut Social Security benefits under Obama. 

There are several problems with this pattern of behavior.  First, it saves Republicans from the electoral consequences of their most unpopular policy positions.  Second, it prevents low information voters from understanding the positions of the two parties on key issues.  Third, it encourages voters to place too little weight on issues they care about but view as fixed features of our political system, such as Social Security and abortion rights.  Given how close the 2016 election was, it seems unlikely Trump would have won if it had been clear that this would lead to the overturning of Roe or repeal of the ACA.

The upshot of all this is that strategic restraint may sometimes be justified, but there are reasons for caution.  Let’s look at some examples to see how the considerations above might play out in practice.

Pardons

My view is that we should evaluate pardons based primarily on their effects on the Democrats’ electoral prospects. 

The Hunter Biden pardon is unpopular, and this was, I think, predictable.  But this will not matter much in future elections, partly because memories are short, and partly because Biden will not be running again.  What does seem likely, at least to me, is that if Trump’s Department of Justice had persecuted Hunter, which I think was likely but not certain, that would have hurt Trump.  The pardon helps Trump politically by protecting him from his own worst inclinations.  It was a mistake.

This logic holds even more strongly when it comes to pre-emptive pardons for Trump’s political enemies:  Cheney, Kinzinger, Smith, and the other unfortunate souls on Kash Patel’s enemies list.  Pardoning Trump’s enemies now would be controversial, but not terribly unpopular.  The main effect of pardons would be to prevent Trump from prosecuting his political enemies.  But these prosecutions would likely be quite unpopular (there is some polling evidence on this point, for what it’s worth), and prosecutions of Cheney et al would remind voters of Trump’s actions leading up to January 6, which remain unpopular.  Finally, pardoning Hunter and Trump’s political enemies lets Trump and his allies use “whatabout” tactics to defuse public anger when Trump pardons those convicted in connection with January 6.

The case against pre-emptive pardons seems strong.

Appointments

Which of Trump’s manifestly unfit and unqualified appointments should Democrats try to block?  Arguably his national security and DOJ/FBI picks pose the greatest existential risk to the country, a risk so great that Democrats should oppose their appointment root and branch.  But what about RFK?  Vaccination rates are already falling, and the risk of a public health disaster is rising.  Why not let RFK take office and then tar Trump with the results when preventable outbreaks occur?  Yes, innocent children may get sick and some may die (although as I just noted some of this seems to be already baked in the cake).  That is absolutely a strong argument against confirming RFK.  On the other hand, the life prospects of children would arguably be much worse if Trump is perceived to have a successful presidency and Republicans continue down the authoritarian and isolationist trail he has blazed. 

This is a terrible choice to have to make, but we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Leverage in budget negotiations

Democrats will presumably have some leverage in budget and debt ceiling negotiations.  They are likely to use this leverage to preserve spending priorities that they support – preserving SNAP benefits or ACA subsidies or Medicaid funding, for example.  But allowing the GOP to decimate these programs will likely make Trump less popular.  Instead of preserving current spending priorities, why shouldn’t the Democrats use whatever leverage they have to pare back Trump’s emergency powers, or to protect the civil service?  (The president’s emergency powers are extremely dangerous and should be reined in even if this prevents Trump from doing unpopular things.  It seems unlikely to me that the public will care much if Trump decimates the civil service, so protecting the civil service is good policy that will not help Trump electorally by preventing him from doing something unpopular.)  Or why not insist on spending cuts that match tax cuts, without budget gimmicks?

Focus on the last possibility.  A business-as-usual approach to fiscal negotiations – with Democrats protecting their spending priorities – would likely lead to large tax cuts coupled with modest spending cuts focused on the poor.  On the other hand, insisting on spending cuts that match any proposed tax cuts could force the Republicans to make deep cuts to popular programs, or at least give Democrats more leverage to pursue other goals, like reining in emergency powers or protecting the civil service. 

Concluding thought – backlash against Democrats

Trump is not the only politician who sometimes pursues unpopular policies.  Backlash can occur against Democrats.  Democrats are often reluctant to put much weight on the risk of backlash, but the evidence that backlash occurs against both social and economic policy choices is quite strong.

*There are other reasons to be cautious about letting Trump do his worst.  For instance, the value of Democratic electoral success is reduced to the extent that we believe the Republican party will return to normal when Trump passes from the scene.  While Trump is in certain respects unique, I am not at all confident that the Republicans will become a small-d democratic party anytime soon.