This is my statement on the midterms. It will not sway anyone, but given the high stakes, I wish to be on the record. Across the nation, the ballot offers voters two very poor options. The first is the radicalized party in power offering a dizzying array of bad policies, in energy, in social matters, in economics, in education.
The challenger radical party would toss out the nearly unique, pathbreaking system built up over the past 250 years. They would do so in the service of an organized crime family led by a grifter-in-chief who finds sedition and supporting hostile foreign powers a perfectly acceptable path to power.
My own state election features a carpetbagger conman who only vaguely knows the geography and culture of the commonwealth. He is competing against a recent stroke victim who seems ill-suited to the rigors of the job, even prior to his illness. What kind of choice is this for a thriving polity? Not a good one.
The absence of options for conservatives, classical liberals (me), or even traditional progressives is a stunning shortcoming of our current political landscape. The center has not held. Yeats is still right, a century later: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
It’s too late for the midterms, but the carnage done to the republic on Tuesday might well shock conservatives, moderates, and traditional progressives out of their stupor. If so, perhaps they can take back the main parties or create new options by the time of the 2024 general election. The alternative—the further political radicalization of our polity by extremists—is horrific to contemplate.