Historian Timothy Snyder urged Democrats to have confidence in winning big in the midterms, saying “(W)hen you know the other side is going to try to cheat, it’s pretty important to be confident of your own victory.”
The Daily is democracy first journalism that could use your support. You can support us by becoming a subscriber.
Speaking to The Guardian’s Kai Wright, authoritarian expert Snyder urged Democrats to have confidence in winning big in the midterms and following that up by fighting corruption when they do.
Video:
Snyder: … That means that you have a chance when you win the elections to get money out of politics. I see that the American so we have deep structural problems. They can't be addressed so long as there's so much money flowing in politics. The Democrats should definitely win both houses, and when they do, they have to start taking steps to change the rules of the game… Like there is a door which is open, or it's at least unlocked. But you got to push through it and believe you can push through it, and not just think, okay, there's somebody who may be trying to hold that door closed.
Wright: So the people specifically we’re talking about here now is the Democratic Party, and if they in fact are able to win some kind of power in these midterms, what you’re arguing then is that what is crucial is that they take on corruption as a first step. Is that what I’m hearing?
Snyder: Yeah, that’s most of what I’m saying. And there’s one other little thing, which is that when you’re going to win an election big, you should think that you’re going to win an election big because if you don’t think about it, it may not happen, right? It’s I mean I’m not saying it’s all psychological. I’m just saying that when you know the other side is going to try to cheat, it’s pretty important to be confident of your own victory. When they do win, they have to know why they won, and they didn't just win because they're good, right?
Snyder’s point about having confidence in winning big is probably the biggest challenge facing the Left, since the Left specializes in defeatism and doomerism — and not without cause.