Today I’m going to pick on an MSNBC opinion writer who waxed less than eloquent on the Utah Senate race.
That race is between incumbent GOP Sen. Mike Lee, who views on voting rights are explained here, and Evan McMullin, an independent libertarian who recently was the target of (pick one) [ ] an assassination attempt, or [ ] road rage (details here).
By way of further background, the Democrats didn’t nominate a candidate in this race, which they had no hope of winning anyway, choosing instead to back McMullin in order to oust Lee, a hard-right conservative who hates democracy (see article here).
To be clear, in Utah — the reddest of red states, but not a Trump bastion — the choice is between a fierce conservative who will never vote for anything remotely resembling liberal or progressive legislation, or a libertarian who won’t vote for progressive legislation.
The MSNBC writer, Natasha Noman (profile here), is worked up (here) because on a TV show last Sunday, October 16, 2022, McMullin “proclaimed that if he wins next month’s election, he will not caucus with either party.” Actually, I think that’s good news; he won’t be a Republican vote.
But Noman, inexplicably, has a problem with it. She says “his vow not to caucus with either party ended any hope that his disapproval for the Republican Party would translate into his working with Democrats,” which leads me to wonder: Where did that hope come from? Certainly not any thinking person who follows politics. I mean, you’re talking about a libertarian candidate from a very conservative state.
She then decries McMullin’s apparent intention to be another Joe Manchin in the Senate, failing to see this is better than Mike Lee staying in the Senate. She says, “While having fewer extremists such as Lee in the Senate would be good for the progressive movement more broadly” (yes!), “McMullin’s Manchin-esque approach … presents an even greater threat to the progressive cause.”
Anyone who thinks McMullin is running to advance progressive causes in the Senate is being silly.
To the extent Noman implies that senators should be lockstep partisan votes for either the Democrats or Republicans, that’s silly, too; we should welcome senators who (1) represent their states, not their party; (2) think independently and vote on the merits of legislation; and (3) turn the Senate into a deliberative body.
However, I don’t think that’s what she’s implying; rather, she doesn’t like the way Manchin leverages his swing vote to extract concessions (and goodies for his home state, such as gutting fossil fuel regulations) from his own caucus. McMullin did make remarks suggesting he might do the same thing, e.g., “we’ve seen that [senators] willing to act with greater independence … have the most influence in the chamber.” But at least he’d be doing it to both caucuses, not just ours.
Noman doesn’t like the fact that “a senator from a low-population state (Utah has around 3 million people, West Virginia around 1.7 million) can determine the American political landscape and make or break legislation that has policy implications for the whole world” and says we should “loudly reject the political system that enables these conditions.” She complains, “Inequity is baked into the DNA of the American political system, not least because each state — irrespective of population size — has two senators. California has around 40 million people, while Wyoming has 580,000, yet they have the same amount of representation in the Senate.”
I suppose that irritates a lot of people besides her. I can tell you it irritates me. But it happens to be our constitutional system, and I’m disinclined to tinker with it. Suppose, for example, we convene a constitutional convention to change the framework of our government — which conservatives are actively seeking — what you might get is described here. Or suppose Congress breaks California into six states — which conservatives are actively seeking — what you’d probably get is 2 more Democratic senators and 4 more Republicans senators. In other words, be careful what you wish for.
Where Noman isn’t silly is when she says “politicians do not exist in a vacuum, and there must be some political cohesion in the form of alliances in order for government to function.” That’s insightful. But where is it written that McMullin, if elected to represent a conservative state, must be a vote “for progressives, in order to advance and preserve basic rights”? Do progressives have a monopoly on protecting rights?
Another MSNBC opinion writer, Hayes Brown, said (here), “I’m so old that I remember when democracy, at home and abroad, was at the center of the Republican Party’s brand.” (Full disclosure: I’m so old I remember that, too.) Why not hope the GOP returns to a semblance of this in the future? It’s been said that “politics is the art of the possible,” but there’s a corollary that in politics anything is possible.
Sure, a Republican Party that supports democracy right now seems a long way away, but as with climbing any big mountain, you get there one little step at a time. Replacing Mike Lee in the Senate with Evan McMullin, i.e. someone who’s against democracy with someone who’s for it, is a very big little step in the right direction. Who cares if McMullin is a libertarian instead of a progressive? And being from Utah, why would anyone expect him to be? That’s silly.
Related story: Other independent candidates around the country could affect 2022 election outcomes; see story here.