Systems and Society #006 - Democrats and "The Big Lie"
Democrats are supporting extreme Republicans. Is this smart?
When I started this newsletter, I didn’t intend for it to be about politics, but politics has been on my mind a lot lately. I consider myself to be a bit of a public policy wonk, and I’m happy to evaluate any public policy regardless of which side of the aisle it came from.
Political strategy is not my forte, but I understand second-order effects and systemic issues that can arise. On that note, I will discuss the Republican primaries that just happened on Tuesday.
Many moderate Republicans, including some that voted to impeach Donald Trump, have been facing primary challenges from the right. Many of these primary challengers are conspiracy theorists that support the “Big Lie”, which refers to Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was fraudulent. These conspiracy theorists have been receiving funding and advertising from the Democratic party1 (in particular, the DCCC, which I will just refer to as “the Democrats” for simplicity) because they believe the extremist candidates will be easier to beat in the general election. And they may be right about this.
Seven problems
There are issues, however, that I’m not sure the Democrats assigned the appropriate weight to.
The Democrats may be overconfident that their plan will work. Overconfidence bias is very common in both individuals and organizations. The Decision Lab has a good article about overconfidence here.
The Democrats are paying more attention to “probability space” than “payoff space.” If I offered you a 50% shot at winning $1 or losing $0, or a 90% chance to win $1 or lose $6, you might be tempted to take the second option because it’s more certain. But the downside is much worse. This actually compounds with point 1, because you may be overconfident in the 90% probability in the first place.
Even if the plan succeeds, and the Democrats pick up some extra seats, there are still problems I’m not sure they accounted for:
They’re elevating the profile of dangerous conspiracy theorists. A primary winner has more legitimacy and will get free media coverage for them to spread the “big lie.” In fact, this is a strategy Donald Trump employed in 2016. The wilder his statements, the more free press he got. This, in turn, led to the radicalization of voters.
They’re directly radicalizing the Republican base, which can have disastrous long-term consequences. Aside from letting candidates like John Gibbs in Michigan’s 3rd district promote conspiracy theories, the Democrats are spending their own money to radicalize them
This undermines the credibility of the January 6th commission. There was a credible threat to our democracy that day, where fake electoral votes could have been counted overturning the will of the voters. By not taking that threat seriously, the Democrats are risking future coup attempts in which all of their money and effort to win elections won’t matter.
It discourages future Republican cooperation. There may be a time in which moderate Republican votes are needed in the future. Democrats can’t count on holding majorities in every level and branch of government from here until the end of time. If a moderate Republican knows that if they take a stand for democracy they will not only get primaried by fringe Republicans but also those fringe Republicans will be boosted by Democrats, which makes it harder for moderate Republicans to take a moral stand. Perhaps the Democrats don’t care that it’ll be harder to govern; their only underlying goal is to elect more Democrats. But, if Democrats can’t govern, this can cost them elections in the future.
This jeopardizes donor money. Donors might not want to donate to Democrats knowing it will just go to boost fringe right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Conclusion
Lastly, note that all of these problems are connected. They are not siloed. If Democrats lose some donors (point 7), it’ll hurt their ability to win big enough that they don’t need any Republicans (point 6). Points 3 and 4 are in the same direction in a reinforcing loop. It provides both a speaker and an audience for the Big Lie conspiracy theory.
The Democratic party is playing an extremely dangerous game, and I don’t think it’s a winning long-term strategy, even if it works in the short term (which is not guaranteed).
If the Democrats want to pursue this strategy, they need to win every single election cycle from now until the Republican party gets reformed (or until the end of time, whichever comes first). If they push to further radicalize the Republicans and lose control over the government for even a single election cycle, we might not have free and fair elections in this country again.
Think back to the previous example about winning a dollar vs losing $6. How much is losing democracy in America worth? What percent chance of that happening are you comfortable increasing that by?
Sources: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1106859552/primary-illinois-colorado-republican-candidate-democrats-ads
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/democrats-stop-funding-right-wing-candidates/
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3581546-democrats-battle-each-other-over-help-for-pro-trump-gop-candidates/
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/07/democrats-spend-millions-on-republican-primaries/
https://nypost.com/2022/07/19/dems-spend-over-1m-on-trump-backed-gop-candidate-in-maryland/