It’s Always Something

By Kevin D. Williamson

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

 

The case for supporting Graham Platner, my Democrat friends assert, is the case for voting for any Senate candidate with a “D” next to his name. A Democrat-controlled Congress (that the Democrats will win a majority in the House is generally taken as given as of this writing, though I’m not sure it should be) puts a stop to Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, which is a very compelling argument until you consider that Donald Trump does not have a legislative agenda to speak of. But there are other levers of power attached to a congressional majority—oversight, confirmations, etc.—as well as an opportunity for Democrats to put forward their own legislative agenda, forcing Trump either to accept their bills or veto some popular proposals. And though a small Democratic majority in the Senate would not be able, on its own strength, to remove Trump (and possibly other members of his administration) from office once the Democrat-controlled House has handed down yet another impeachment (as many observers assume it will, as a matter of course), every jackass with a Kik account and a “D” next to his name who ends up seated in the Senate puts Democrats one step closer to realizing that end.

 

That isn’t nothing. There are a dozen good reasons to impeach Trump and other members of his administration and remove them from office—from the illegally launched and incompetently executed war in Iran to the massacres of civilians at sea to the still-relevant issue of the failed coup d’état of 2020–21—and it would be useful and salubrious to have an empowered congressional opposition to check Trump’s various abuses of power, which range from trying to evade Senate confirmation in making high-level appointments to his attempt to simply loot the Treasury to set up a $1.8 billion slush fund to use for his own political purposes. The personal, venal corruption attending this administration is epic, and Democrats could perform a very useful public service by making it a headline issue under a new Democratic majority, if one should come to pass.

 

The case for supporting Ken Paxton, my Republican friends assert, is the case for voting for any Senate candidate with an “R” next to his name. A Democrat-controlled Congress (that the Democrats will win a majority in the House is generally taken as given as of this writing, though I’m not sure it should be) puts a stop to Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, which is a very compelling argument until you consider that Donald Trump does not have a legislative agenda to speak of. But there are other levers of power attached to a congressional majority—oversight, confirmations, etc.—as well as an opportunity for Democrats to put forward their own legislative agenda, forcing Trump either to accept their bills or veto some popular proposals. And though a small Democratic majority in the Senate would not be able, on its own strength, to remove Trump (and possibly other members of his administration) from office once the Democrat-controlled House has handed down yet another impeachment (as many observers assume it will, as a matter of course), every jackass with a Kik account and a “D” next to his name who ends up seated in the Senate puts Democrats one step closer to realizing that end.

 

That isn’t nothing.

 

There are many dangers associated with Thomas Friedman-style “China for a Day” thinking. But if I could wave a magic wand and create Democratic majorities sufficient to carry out a broad and wide act of national political hygiene by ending, via acts of Congress, the political careers of Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Todd Blanche, et al., I would be sore tempted to do my best Harry Potter impersonation: “In tenebras exteriores!”

 

I expect they’d raise my taxes, too, and I suppose I could live with that, even if I am tempted to adapt H.L. Mencken: “No man is genuinely happy under a Democratic government if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when Republicans were in charge.”

 

I hear people talk about these elections as though they were attempting to channel Machiavelli, as though there were some compellingly clever strategic consideration informing their planned votes. But I often detect lurking beneath that the politics of cooties—the unspoken belief that one becomes morally contaminated by casting a vote for the other party or even by declining to cast a vote for one’s own party. “Yes, yes, x is awful”—where x = Graham Platner or Ken Paxton—“but not as awful as y” where y = the other party. I think that line of thinking often serves as a way to give oneself a moral get-out-of-jail-free card for indulging in political tribalism over decency. I write that as someone who has, as far as I can tell, precisely one thing in common politically with the great majority of my Democratic friends: the belief that the Republican Party at this moment is not only wrong on a great many questions of policy but is, more consequentially, a dangerous and depraved personality cult. I told Michael Medved on his radio show on Monday that I would find it impossible to support any Republican for any office at this time. Even if that means giving the Democrats a Senate majority? he wanted to know.

 

Medved is far from an unthinking Republican loyalist, but the assumption in the question was mistaken in a way that seems to me a little bit illuminating. I told him that my preferred electoral outcome for the immediate future is seeing Republicans “stomped into goo.” I know what that means in practical terms. I don’t know that we have a word for negative polarization that is bipartisan, but, if there is one, that is approximately what I am feeling right now. If there were a way to get Republicans stomped without the party of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez getting more power, then I’d be all for that. But there isn’t.

 

Voting is not the beginning or end of civic life, or even the most important part of democratic participation. Whatever convenient lie people tell themselves, “Vote for x” or (the one I hear more often) “Tell people they have to vote for x” usually isn’t the result of clear-eyed political calculation—it is usually a demand for an act of tribal fealty, preferably a public act. And if someone demands that you demonstrate your loyalty by pretending that Graham Platner or Ken Paxton is a different sort of man than what he is, or by insisting that you keep quiet about what kind of man he is for the sake of party cohesion, then that person does not deserve your trust or your loyalty. That kind of person will always find an excuse for doing something awful in the urgent cause of the moment, as though the greater good were composed of lesser evils.

 

You can always find a reason to pull for your team. It’s always something. But don’t go mistaking team spirit for patriotism, civic virtue, or the higher good.