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Exposure Is Not Accountability
When bad actors are shameless, exposure accomplishes little. They need to face tangible consequences.
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Democrats apparently love to use Post-it reminders to keep themselves grounded in political realities. Or maybe this is just a thing they did once when Bill Clinton was running for president—“it’s the economy, stupid”—and I overgeneralized.
In either event, I propose the headline of this piece as something they should write on sticky notes, or print on to posters, and plaster all around their various offices. Campaign offices. Congressional committee offices. Governor’s offices. State attorney general offices.
And if they want to attach the clause to some achievable objective, it should be something like this: Hold at least one prominent Republican truly accountable for dirty tricks or election crimes before date X. Do something to change the incentive structure that encourages Republicans to lie and cheat all the time, even if it’s at the margin. Election Day is ambitious, but, hey! That’s the point of setting goals!
We have an embarrassment of offenses whose perpetrators they could target.
The right-wing operatives who defamed James Talarico, and their accompanying attempt to defraud the Linder Center of Hope, an apparently random mental-health facility in Ohio.
Elon Musk, who promoted the Talarico smears on X, doing his level best to make the accusation stick despite having every reason to believe it was fabricated.
Donald Trump and the Republican government employees who collaborated with him to steal taxpayer dollars to produce and air pro-Trump ads on national television.
The Republican Georgia State Election Board executive director who pleaded with DOJ to come meddle in the Georgia election, against the wishes of actual Republican and Democratic board members.
The officials who orchestrated and ordered the raid of Ilhan Omar’s house in Washington, DC.
The DOGE boys and their bosses.
That’s a small taste. What I’m proposing, though, isn’t that Democrats “make hay” of these things, to the end of maybe turning them into electoral liabilities for Republicans. Yes, of course, the country should come to realize that, e.g., Omar is a sympathetic figure here, and that Republican election-subversion is discrediting, and that Trump’s propaganda ads are gross, and so on. Democrats should wave the bloody shirt. These schemes obviously shouldn’t be allowed to work.
But they should do more than just fail on their own terms. The people responsible should experience personal consequences that make them regret their lack of character, rather than that they simply didn’t try harder, or scheme more competently.
Too often, Democrats conflate the concepts of exposure and accountability. ...
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