Though I've become accustomed to undiscerning analyses in political journalism — mostly because so many political journalists today are a mere eight years out of middle school — Jonathan Martin's NY Times analysis of California's recall election misses the relevant mark by an uncommonly, stunningly wide margin.
He looks at the recall as perhaps a harbinger of 2022; it's a "warning," he writes, for Republicans. "The recall [offers] at least one lesson to Democrats in Washington ahead of next year’s midterm elections: The party’s pre-existing blue- and purple-state strategy of portraying Republicans as Trump-loving extremists can still prove effective."
Therein lies the essence, or rather totality, of Martin's analysis. And what he writes would indeed be true for "Democrats in Washington," but only if other states and locales were as deeply blue as California. Which, of course, they are not. Not even close, excepting maybe Hawaii, Rhode Island and a twenty-block district in Austin, Texas. As well, what California has to teach purple states, I've no idea. Neither does Martin. But damn it sounds insightful.
Yet we've not yet approached the monumental purblindness of Martin's analysis, which requires some quotes and this bit of Martinean prelude: "For Republicans eying Mr. Biden’s falling approval ratings and growing hopeful about their 2022 prospects, the failed recall is less an ominous portent than a cautionary reminder about what happens when they put forward candidates who are easy prey for the opposition."
Again, deep-blue California has nothing to do with nearly all other states and, in general, Republicans' 2022 prospects. But more than that is Martin's reference to whom "they" will put forward as candidates. The "they" in his piece clearly suggests strategists and party leaders, which is fine, but it's Republican voters, by and large, who will determine the candidates. And that means the cyclical ritual of Crazy Unbound: primaries.
This, Martin brushes up against: "The last time Democrats controlled the presidency and both chambers of Congress, in 2010, the Republicans made extensive gains but fell short of reclaiming the Senate because they nominated a handful candidates so flawed that they managed to lose in one of the best midterm elections for the G.O.P. in modern history."
And that, muses Martin, taught them (an outdated) lesson: "If Republicans are to reclaim the Senate next year, party officials say, they will do so by elevating candidates who do not come with the bulging opposition research files of a 27-year veteran of right-wing radio."
Now we're getting close to the huge red elephant in the room, which, somehow, Martin fails to notice. He continues: "The possibility that Elder-style figures could win primaries in more competitive states alarms many establishment-aligned Republicans as they assess the 2022 landscape. Nominees too closely linked to Mr. Trump … could undermine the party’s prospects in states like Georgia, Arizona, Missouri and Pennsylvania that will prove crucial to determining control of the Senate."
With that, his analysis draws to close — without ever even mentioning the monstrous Republican backstop that either can or most definitely will save the day for troglodytic, insurrectionist GOP candidates: election subversion.
Simply put, insane primary outcomes are no longer the Republican problem they once were. Go ahead, ye morons of Election Day, nominate any Elderlike lunatic you wish. For state GOP legislatures in battleground states such as Georgia have rigged the electoral process. They have enshrined in law the Stalinesque maxim that it's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes.
Nothing, absolutely nothing is more central to 2022 and 2024 than election subversion. (Show of hands: How many believe Georgia's state legislature, regardless of the will of voters, will return Raphael Warnock to the U.S. Senate next year?)
Republicans no longer need worry about psychologically disturbed candidates like Larry Elder, for Republican pols in critical battleground states have his back. The fix — the fixes — are in.
And yet nowhere is this all-encompassing, inescapable, thunderingly antidemocratic fact of America's electoral future — indeed, of America's future, full stop — even alluded to in Jonathan Martin's "analysis." Stunning. Just … stunning.