Amazing: Georgia Gov Brian Kemp may now face a primary precisely because he wouldn't steal the election for Trump.

Oddly, Kemp's "election integrity" bill wasn't enough. It's as if GOP voters want people in office who will overturn elections.

My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Trump-backed primary challenges are often framed as retaliation against Republicans who were personally disloyal to Trump.

It's worse than that: They reflect an apparent desire among GOP voters to elect officials who are willing to subvert elections:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Kemp bent over backward to audit the 2020 results and then signed one of the most onerous "election integrity" bills.

It didn't assuage Trumpists' anger in the slightest.

Weren't we told GOP voters merely needed "confidence" in our elections restored?

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Meanwhile, Trump is busy transforming Jan 6 into a mythic Lost Cause designed to continue deepening hatred of democracy. As @markfollman reports:

"Trump has sought to fully transform the Capitol siege into a patriotic triumph of the Republican Party."

motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
@markfollman And we've seen threats to elections officials everywhere, as @zackbeauchamp details.

Weird: We've had all these audits and "election integrity" laws, yet people's "confidence" in our elections isn't yet restored.

Maybe they want something else entirely?

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

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More from @ThePlumLineGS

19 Nov
Passage of BBB is a big victory, but let's not forget this:

Virtually every Republican just voted against a $1.4 trillion tax hike on the rich and corporations.

I talked to tax experts who went deep on what this says about the two parties' priorities:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Republicans are seizing on the SALT provision to argue this bill shows Dems are the party of plutocrats.

Let's talk about how ridiculous this is.

Here's what Republicans just voted against:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
The SALT provision is a serious issue, and not just substantively. It also points to a real coalitional problem Democrats face, with some House members coming from wealthy suburban districts:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
17 Nov
Here's my proposal in the wokeness wars: Let's ground our response to the right in egalitarian liberalism. This provides a way to recapture the center, articulate a real vision of our own, and unmask the ugly truth about the right's real goals. My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Chris Rufo tweeted that "it's time to clean house in America" and "lay siege to universities" and "overturn school boards."

This messianism about purging subversive cultural leftism creates an opening for liberals to occupy the center of this debate:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
We should say what we stand for in the wokeness wars. I propose restating our core commitment to egalitarian liberalism.

Here's what that is:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 5 tweets
15 Nov
Instead of cowering defensively and screaming for purges of "wokeness," Dems should make Republicans pay a political price for their ugly anti-CRT tactics, the deeper aims they embody, and the degradations they’ve inflicted on our national life. My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Important:

DCCC chair Sean Maloney tells me emphatically that in 2022, Dems will avoid the pitfall of non-engagement that cost them in VA.

“Children need to learn their history — all of it — without censorship or politics limiting what they can learn."

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
There's a lot of new reporting today on Dems worrying about the lack of an answer on CRT.

But their deliberations seem limited to *only* options for course correction that placate White voter concerns through defensive maneuvering.

There's another way:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 5 tweets
5 Nov
I call BS on the idea that Dem losses were caused by the BBB agenda straying too far left. This is entirely out of touch with how electoral politics works. And Biden *ran on* the BBB agenda. My response to that bad NYT editorial and other centrists:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The @nytopinion editorial and some centrists are saying Dem losses are partly due to the overreaching ideological ambition of BBB and its alleged departure from Biden's 2020 platform.

Here's a thought experiment that, in my view, blows this idea up:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@nytopinion It's just empirically the case that the current BBB agenda reflects what Biden ran on.

The scope of his agenda and its basic ideological ambition were undeniably communicated to voters.

I went back and looked at TV ads, speeches and campaign blueprints:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 4 tweets
3 Nov
I confess to being shocked and unsettled at how quickly the Dem coalition fractured after ousting Trump. This leads to an ugly possibility: For the third time, Dems may have only a two-year window to clean up a big national mess left by GOP rule.

My wrap:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Awful but true:

Republicans appear to be benefiting from changes Trump inflicted on our politics (educational polarization) without paying any price for his legacy of white nationalism, mass covid death, or trying to overthrow democracy.

w/@EricLevitz

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Democrats need a better response on CRT. They need to more frontally engage genuine parental concerns about curricula. But this cannot entail backing off holding Republicans accountable for the conflict and chaos their race-baiting demagogy has unleashed:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
1 Nov
NEWS:

Congressional Dems from Florida are ratcheting up pressure on the University of Florida to explain and reverse its decision to ban professors from testifying against the state's voting law.

Hearings are a possibility.

That and more in my latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
I asked the University of Florida to detail its rationale. A spox emailed me a new explanation.

It's not persuasive. And one of the professors tells me he repeatedly testified against the state of Florida in the past with the university's approval:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Now @RepDWStweets tells me she and other Florida Dems are signing a letter calling on the university to explain and reverse its decision.

She had a private talk with the university president. He couldn't explain.

Hearings are possible, she suggests:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 4 tweets

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