The Battle For Democracy Is Already Raging

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

When the town criers in the pages of the Atlantic or the Washington Post pound the alarm on the struggle for democracy, they’re nearly always talking about Donald Trump and his quest for the White House. The battle for democracy is scheduled for November 5, 2024. 

But our slide into democratic decay has been happening long before Trump made the transition from celebrity-rich guy-famous asshole to politician. And it’s happened in perhaps the most devastating way through the mind-numbingly boring reorganization and manipulation of how voters are arranged throughout a state. 

“Redistricting,” “gerrymandering” — words I try to keep out of my headlines, as they inevitably presage a dip in readership — mostly at the hands of Republicans have all but wiped out democracy in many states. Look at Ohio or North Carolina or Wisconsin, ranging from leaning red to true tossups, over which Republicans have manufactured such ironclad control that their legislatures are virtually impossible for Democrats to win. 

That’s the first step to the barrage of right-wing legislation these lawmakers pump out, both altering the trajectory of their own states and becoming models for others. It’s how they became laboratories of autocracy, to crib from David Pepper.

But Republicans are not content with the very effective tools they have. Having successfully reduced the Voting Rights Act to a shell of its former strength, they’re taking aim once again, hoping to strip it of what few protections it still affords to minority voters. 

In Georgia — where state Republicans have done the legal version of biting, kicking and letting their bodies go limp to avoid being dragged into creating a court-ordered additional Black majority district — the legislature just passed the final version of its “remedial” congressional map. They grudgingly created the new district, but also dismantled the one currently held by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) to preserve the current 9-5 Republican House seat advantage. 

In McBath’s district, a coalition of Black, Latino and Asian voters typically elect Democrats. By producing this map despite U.S. District Judge Steve Jones warning them not to eliminate “minority opportunity districts elsewhere in the plans,” Georgia Republicans are directly challenging the idea that the VRA protects these coalitional districts the same way it does districts with a majority of one minority group. 

There’s an appellate court split on the question, and the Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on it. 

Beyond general power lust, there’s a reason Georgia Republicans in particular are so threatened by these minority group coalitions. The state’s recent, and stunning, Democratic lean came on the backs of these voters diversifying the suburbs around the main metro areas. This is a newer trend that old Republican gerrymanders don’t address as well as they do urban pockets often densely populated by minority voters. 

Jones will react to the map in the coming days, and intends to order a court-drawn one if he rejects it. 

The war on democracy is already raging. And one side is hellbent on achieving absolute victory. 

More on other news below. Let’s dig in. 

— Kate Riga

More Cheese, Please

We’ve long maintained that Trump’s 2020 fake electors plot worked both as a keystone for the various schemes he put into play to undo his loss, and also as a relatively easy entry point for prosecutors seeking to find a crime to charge in the coup attempt.

In one sense, it’s easy. They signed false documents claiming to be the real electors, and then submitted those false records to Congress and others in a bid to masquerade as, possibly, the real electors. Federal prosecutors, in earlier stages of their investigation, focused on the fake electors, and even offered some of them limited immunity in exchange for testimony.

Now, prosecutors in Michigan and Nevada have brought criminal charges against the fake electors. Their Wisconsin cohort admitted in a civil suit this week that the whole thing was a sham, while Arizona and New Mexico state prosecutors are examining their states’ fake electors.

At the center of it all is Ken Chesebro, the attorney who played a leading role in devising the fake electors plot. Chesebro was listed as a witness in the Nevada prosecutions, and has been talking to prosecutors in Arizona and Michigan. The big question here, with multiple states pursuing the fake electors, is only partly what Chesebro does at the state level. In the D.C. Jan. 6 indictment of Trump, Chesebro was listed as co-conspirator 5. What does Jack Smith think about him flying around the country, offering his cooperation?

— Josh Kovensky

Revisiting The 2020 Iowa Caucus 

I know. I know. There probably has never been a less enticing headline in the storied history of this newsletter, but hear me out here.
 

This week, TPM published the first excerpt of “The Truce,” the upcoming book that I wrote with everyone’s favorite internet pup, Luppe B. Luppen. The story, which was adapted from one of the book’s chapters, describes the chaos behind the scenes in Bernie Sanders’ war room on the night of the disputed Iowa caucus. It goes into detail about just how messy and unclear that pivotal contest was and reveals for the first time that the disputed delegate from that contest was ultimately awarded to Sanders in a pre-convention backroom deal. 

Iowa was a painful memory for Democrats of all stripes. As Josh Marshall pointed out when we discussed the chapter on this week’s edition of Kate Riga’s “Belaboring The Point” pod, reading through the caucus chaos is “excruciating.” In the excerpt we talk about how Sanders ended the night in “seething anger” and feeling “robbed.” Meanwhile, supporters of Pete Buttigieg tend to get upset when anyone questions the victory he initially claimed that night even though the Associated Press, which is the recognized authority on calling elections, ultimately declined to declare a winner due to questions about the data. For President Joe Biden’s team, his apparent fourth place finish that night is also a painful memory. 

So, why revisit any of this? Well, the caucus chaos ultimately set the stage for a major reshaping of the Democratic primary process that will have implications for years to come. That’s a story we dig far deeper into in the book. And as we describe in the excerpt, the night ultimately may have ended in a strategic victory for Biden since the data meltdown took attention off his poor performance. In the end, the disastrous caucus is one example of the ways we found the Democratic Party is in what the TPM pod team described as a “fragile array.” After our extensive survey, we found Dems are in a far more complex position than the bumbling caricature you often find on cable. However, with another fight against Trump on the horizon, they are hardly set up for smooth sailing. It’s a story that, while it might not be easy to read, is unquestionably important and our work telling it is based on years of reporting and conversations with figures at every level of the party. I hope you will check it out and consider pre-ordering a copy.

— Hunter Walker

“This is the fourth debate — the fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America, so shut up for a little while.”

That’s Chris Christie saying what we’ve all been thinking.

It took four debates, but the former governor of New Jersey finally showed us some vintage, out-for-blood Christie Wednesday night. Not only did he deliver a delicious take down of Vivek Ramaswamy’s relentless attacks on Nikki Haley’s intelligence, he also took his sharpest tone toward Donald Trump yet. 

“This is an angry, bitter man” who wants to exact “retribution,” Christie said.

If the debates mattered, it’d have been the least snoozy performance of the cycle thus far. 

— Nicole Lafond