Here’s the Deal, Liz

So it looks like the House Republican caucus is about to/in the process of purging Liz Cheney (R-WY) from her position as conference chair. Her sin is continuing to talk about how Donald Trump is attacking the foundations of American democracy and how bad this is. When this happens, it will formally mark the occasion of the Republican Party’s total consolidation as a fascist party, one in which support for democratic institutions is not tolerated.

Interestingly, Cheney has just penned a rather forceful op-ed in the Washington Post on that same theme, suggesting that she is not particularly interested in pandering to the fascist element in her party — which, any minute now, will just not be distinct from “her party.” And that feels potentially a bit momentous. The prospect of the Republican Party splitting in two has been in the air for the whole Trump era, and hasn’t ever come even close to happening.

But maybe an actual purge by the fascist mainstream of the party against its pro-democratic fringe could change that. Why, exactly, should people like Cheney want to stick around in this party? And the fact that she’s leaning into the whole thing suggests she may feel the same way. Yesterday Mitt Romney sent out a highly intriguing tweet praising Cheney and echoing an anonymous Senate colleague’s statement that “I wouldn’t want to be a member of a group that punished someone for following their conscience.” That’s, y’know, a curious thing for a member of a group that is palpably in the process of doing exactly that to say. Similarly, prominent conservative-but-anti-Trump pundit David French wrote that it may be time to “make tough choices about the unity of the party.”

Who knows if anything will come of this. Ideally I’d like to see a group including as many of the Republicans who voted in favor of the second impeachment attempt as possible (so, up to 10 Representatives and 7 Senators) break off from the Republican Party and form some sort of Lincoln Caucus or whatever they wanted to call it. They presumably wouldn’t formally caucus with the Democrats, but it should be understood that they want to be seen as part of the coalition that wants to pass laws in the public interest and that they are keen to negotiate with Biden and congressional Democratic leadership around the content of that legislation — leaving the remnants of the Republican Party completely off to the side (and satisfying both sides of the “should Democrats seek bipartisanship??” Discourse in the process haha). And then the next step would be translating that congressional splinter caucus into an actual party with the relevant infrastructure to compete in elections across the country (especially in conservative territory).

But first things first. Here’s what I think the Democrats should insist on from the splinter caucus as a show of good faith requisite to our feeling like it’s worth our time to include them as governing partners. The most important thing, in a way the only thing, is that they need to help us pass voting rights and democratic reform legislation. The details can be a little bit subject to negotiation, but there are a few non-negotiables:

• It has to include D.C. statehood.
• It has to include something along the lines of reviving the Voting Rights Act, and possibly any novel safeguards against Georgia-style nonsense.
• It has to include meaningful gerrymandering reform.
• And I think it should really include some kind of safeguard against the stuff Trump’s been trying to incite since November, where states just blatantly refuse to follow the will of the voters. I don’t know what that should look like, but it seems pretty important.

That will involve doing some things that these conservatives aren’t comfortable with, by way of the federal exercise of power over state election systems. But y’know what, desperate times call for desperate measures, and if they’re serious (and there’s reason to think they are, if they actually do the splintering) then they’ll need to make their peace with that. Standing in defense of democracy can’t just mean verbalizing your own belief therein; it has to mean taking concrete actions to defend democracy against the Trumpist assault. Quite plainly our institutions as they stand are not quite up to the challenge.

The one other thing, which would almost certainly be bound up in the first thing, is filibuster reform. There’s no way Mitch McConnell lets the aforementioned package of election reforms through, after all. And you’d think that a scenario like this could open up some space for filibuster reform. The bargain would be that nothing will pass that does not command the support of the centrist bloc comprised of these breakaway Republicans plus centrist Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. That could come about by setting the threshold to 50 votes but securing a commitment from Manchin and Sinema not to support legislation that has no support from the Romney et al. faction, or it could mean setting a threshold somewhere lower than 60, higher than 50, but attainable with adequate support from that faction. Again, without something along those lines we can’t pass the democratic reforms, and without the democratic reforms we will lose the fight against the fascists. There just isn’t a choice.

Beyond that, the chips can fall where they may. I don’t anticipate that the centrist bloc would support something like Supreme Court reform; if we get the democratic reforms, it’s fine to leave that fight to another day if its political support grows. But if they’re going to do this, it has to mean joining hands with Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi to actively protect American democracy.