Let’s assume that winning congressional votes is something that peace advocates care a lot about, enough that they would do things now that would help us win congressional votes on peace issues in the future.
Why wouldn’t peace advocates compete in Republican congressional primaries?
In particular, why wouldn’t peace advocates compete in Republican primaries in places where there is no plausible story that they would be bothering outcomes for any other progressive interest by doing so? Many districts only elect Republicans, no matter what. So, if all Republicans are bad on issue X, then it’s baked into the cake that the people who live in such a district are going to have a representative who is bad on issue X, no matter what peace advocates do. So, if peace advocates manage to find a Republican in that district who is good on some peace issue, there’s no plausible story that they are harming outcomes for people who care about issue X by supporting a Republican in that district who is better than other Republicans on some peace issue.
If you look at votes on peace issues in Congress that we lost narrowly, they tend to look like this: We had almost all Democrats and a small chunk of Republicans. So there’s two stories you could tell about why we lost compared to winning. One story is given that we only had a small chunk of Republicans, almost all Democrats wasn’t good enough. We needed to run the table on Democrats.
But the other story you could tell is given that we were going to have some Democratic defections, that small chunk of Republicans was too small. We needed that small chunk of Republicans to be a little bit bigger.
Suppose that it were possible to grow that small chunk of Republicans sufficiently to win such peace votes by only playing in districts where there is no plausible story of electing a Democrat who is good on issue X.
Why wouldn’t peace advocates try to do that?
The Washington Post reports that even if every Republican representing a district that voted for Hillary Clinton for president were replaced by a Democrat, it would not be enough for Democrats to take the House. Even if every voter who voted for Clinton and then voted for a Republican candidate for Congress voted instead for a Democrat, it would still not be enough for Democrats to take the House. In order for Democrats to take the House, some Trump voters would have to vote for Democrats running for Congress.
This means that for those who wish to try to use Congress to reform US foreign policy for less war, helping Democrats retake the House will certainly not be a sufficient strategy. Because either Democratic leaders will continue to recruit the kinds of candidates they have recruited in the past, in which case Democrats will not take the House, or else they will recruit a more ideologically diverse group of candidates, in which case having a Democratic majority will not ensure having a less-war majority.
In this situation, why wouldn’t peace advocates contest in Republican primaries in congressional districts that Democrats have no chance of winning?
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.