In a few short months, primary voters will begin selecting the Republican presidential nominee. The two debates thus far have been underwhelming. A third is approaching on Nov. 8, but it, too, promises to be the kind of unhelpful event that lacks the virtue of at least being entertaining. Yet I’ll be watching — tuned in and deciding which candidate to support. I’m not a Republican, but I’ll play one on Super Tuesday, March 5.
I live in Virginia, an open primary state with nonpartisan registration. This means voters can participate in either party’s primary, and independents like me get to join the fun. I always cast my ballot in whichever primary is more competitive. In 2016, it was the Republicans; in 2020, the Democrats. The one constant is that deciding whose box to check is hard.
But there is such a thing as too hard. The current field of Republican candidates offers a master class in making a comically complex decision tragically complicated. It isn’t a matter of remarkable candidates and platforms flush with too much detail. The choice is hard because the contenders seem in a rush to become caricatures of a red-meat conservatism. It’s hard because they spend an inordinate amount of time demonizing the other party and its voters — and no time explaining how they’d work with the half of the country sure to vote against them.
With politics like these, it’s little surprise that most of the country avoids primary elections altogether by simply choosing not to vote. Those who do vote in general elections often stick to partisan lines that track through a tangle of cultural, ideological and social markers. Parties make the choosing easier.
But there is such a thing as too easy. The current state of our two-party system increasingly causes voters to view one of the two as tolerable and the other as a threat. It reduces complicated issues to simplistic battles of good vs. evil, us vs. them. That makes the choice quite straightforward: Vote for your side (the good guys) and against the side filled with bad people and their bad ideas. Even independents have picked a team, effectively partisans without the membership card. The simplicity of it all is a feature, not a bug. And it’s terrible for democracy. Some things, like political decisions, are supposed to be a little bit hard.
In the primaries, it’s home vs. home — not home vs. away — so voters get to be more discerning about the players. The idea that candidates will compete for each vote is democracy’s high, creating the sense of agency that voters are always chasing. When the field is crowded, primaries can be sensational affairs powered by the idea that to have the spotlight is to be the victor — all of which is crystallized in the debates. In due course, campaigns reveal character. And, ultimately, the party’s identity becomes deeply connected to the character of its nominee. These are high-stakes affairs for all involved: the candidates, the party, the voters and the country.
So, allons-y. Into the breach.
Assessing some of the hopefuls is easier than others. Donald Trump: simple. He has proved to be as president the exact same person he was during his first primary campaign in 2016. The same could be said of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy should he, too, unexpectedly catch a fire. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, offers more Trumpism but promises, this time, to do it with virtue. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie is reprising his role as decimator, a title earned with his one-liner daggers that hurried the demise of Florida senator Marco Rubio in 2016.
Others are more complicated. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s talent seems to be catching the prevailing political wind, whatever direction it blows. That can be good if the winds are fair and just, but if they are not, it seems she will fill her sails nonetheless. Her fellow Palmetto State politician, Sen. Tim Scott, is also a curious read, alternating between a compassionate conservative who thinks about inequality and a partisan foot soldier who hopes to prove his bona fides by trash-talking Democrats and progressives. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis registers in my gut and my head: my gut because I served with guys like him in the Navy, so, he’s familiar; my head because he’s blocking implementation of an amendment to return voting rights to folks with felony convictions, a measure about two-thirds of Floridians voted for in a successful ballot initiative. Stonewalling the democratic expression of his constituents — the actual voice of the people — is a tell.
One idea is to assess candidates’ constitutional character, which Harvard political scientist Dennis Thompson describes as “the disposition to act” in pro-democracy ways by modeling “such qualities as sensitivity to basic rights, respect for due process in the broad sense, willingness to accept responsibility, tolerance of opposition, and most importantly a commitment to candor.”
Sounds good to me. Applying those standards is hard work, but the good kind of hard — the kind that, well, builds character. The candidates could help themselves and the country by putting on that sort of show without the exaggerated personas that will take the stage at the next debate. But I won’t hold my breath. There’s such a thing as too good to be true.
