Some think you have to endorse someone and their beliefs to defend them from a wrong.
That’s a mistake. For example, you don’t have to agree with any candidate who’s being locked out of primaries to uphold democracy.
This week, four states officially canceled their 2020 Republican presidential primaries in order to block any support for long-shot opponents, who we do not support.
We know. This is no precedent and Democratic and Republican parties in states have canceled primary elections since at least 1992, when President George H.W. Bush was seeking re-election.
Eight states canceled primaries then, while 10 states did so in 2004 when President George W. Bush was running for a second term. Incumbent presidents Clinton and Obama were also the benefactors of eight canceled primaries in 1996 and 10 in 2012, respectively.
However, although these incumbents all worked to thwart primary opponents it was not a key component of their campaign strategies to cancel primaries.
Nor did they take aim at the first-in-the-nation primaries to head off momentum for challengers early on.
For now, Arizona, Kansas, Nevada and South Carolina have formally canceled their presidential primaries. Other state’s parties have until the Oct. 1 deadline to file delegate selection plans with the Republican National Committee.
Kansas’ and Nevada’s GOP picks its presidential delegates during statewide caucuses, while Arizona’s primary is closed and South Carolina’s is open.
Admittedly, all three of President Trump’s challengers are long shots, at best. But who would have thought Trump would win the GOP’s nomination in 2016?
And the Democratic National Committee doesn’t get a bye here for having chosen Hillary Clinton as the heir apparent before the primaries even got underway.
The trend is clear in primary elections in modern times: They are becoming more undemocratic every go around.
The whole idea of a democracy is to allow for choices rather than hand-picked winners, no matter how they are picked. And though incumbents and challengers may have certain advantages, they still need to prove themselves in debates and at the polls. Not facing challengers or manipulating a party’s will to reflect its hierarchy’s choice, rather than its rank and file is wrong.
In 2016 the cries of the system being rigged to elect Hillary Clinton were commonplace from the Trump campaign.
It appears that his re-election campaign is now eliminating elections in key early states to do as much. No matter which party or candidate you support, this trend is undemocratic.
Whatever happened to the idea you just go and win elections or not?
