My recent column making the case for a Republican Senate elicited two responses worth commenting on.
First, an email:
I hadn’t seen this way of thinking anywhere else so thank you for that. But there’s a problem: It doesn’t just mean you have to support a Republican Senate. You have to have a Republican Senate with a big enough margin to survive if the 2028 elections go bad [for Republicans]. You’re saying that voters have to support every Republican, no matter how terrible, because Democrats could do terrible things in 2029.
What you see as a “problem,” I see as an implication. My argument is that the consequences of a Democratic trifecta in 2029 are alarming enough to be a strong consideration in favor of voting for Republican senators now. Maybe there are individual races where the Republican is so objectionable that it can defeat this consideration, but yes, that’s an argument for a Republican majority with some votes to spare.
Second, a tweet:
The stain of the most corrupt potus ever will stay with all MAGAs and even someone somewhat more reasonable as you FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES.
Though strongly worded, this comment can be read a few ways. If the point is a prediction — Americans in the future will reach a consensus against people who supported Republicans in any way in 2026, judging them the way we now judge segregationists or Nazis — I think it is highly unlikely to come true. And anyway, it does not strike me as honorable to refrain from saying something one thinks is true and important out of fear that people in the future will wrongly condemn it.
But perhaps the point is that this condemnatory judgment would be, and is, right. If the point is moral, and does not depend on any future contingencies, then any force it has depends on my being wrong about what justice and Americans’ other interests require. The reference to a “stain” is verbiage that’s surplus to a case that hasn’t been made.
(The guy who sent the tweet later said he valued my commentary in general, which was nice.)