Dwain Northey (Gen X)

We have a little more than two weeks left in this election cycle, and apparently some Republicans have decided that the best way to convince voters they deserve another term in office is to avoid talking to the voters. Brilliant strategy. Truly, the kind of political genius that makes you wonder whether anyone in the room has ever actually run for office before.

Republican candidates are refusing to debate their Democratic challengers. You know, those little events where candidates stand on a stage, explain their positions, defend their records, and answer questions from the people who are supposed to vote for them. Nothing too complicated. Unless, of course, you have no defensible positions, a record you would rather not discuss, or a party platform that sounds considerably better in a carefully edited campaign advertisement than it does under five minutes of actual scrutiny.

Then there’s Vice President JD Vance, apparently finding time to make accusations about Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s sexuality. Because when you’re trying to win an election, naturally the first thing voters want to know is whether a candidate is gay. Except Talarico isn’t, and more importantly, who the hell cares?

Apparently, when you can’t win an argument about healthcare, the economy, education, or the general condition of the country, you can always rummage through the political dumpster and pull out somebody’s sexuality. It’s the Republican equivalent of showing up to a gunfight with a water pistol and insisting the other guy is cheating because his water pistol has better aim.

But the really interesting part of this political circus isn’t what the Republicans are doing. It’s what the Democrats are doing in response.

Democratic candidates are still showing up.

They’re holding town halls. They’re taking questions. They’re standing in front of audiences that include Republican voters and answering their concerns, even when those questions are uncomfortable or the people asking them have no intention of voting Democratic. They’re engaging with people who disagree with them rather than hiding behind a campaign manager, a carefully curated social media feed, or a press release written by somebody who probably couldn’t identify the candidate’s actual policy positions without consulting a binder.

And sometimes, those Republican voters walk away satisfied with the answers they receive.

Imagine that. A politician answering a question instead of calling the questioner a name, changing the subject, or claiming that the question is part of some elaborate conspiracy designed to make them look bad.

It turns out that voters, even Republican voters, are capable of listening to an answer and deciding whether it makes sense. Who knew?

This is what campaigning is supposed to look like. You present your ideas, explain your record, answer questions, and trust the voters to make their own decisions. You don’t have to agree with everyone, and you certainly won’t win everyone over. But at least you demonstrate that you respect the people whose votes you are asking for.

Refusing to debate your opponent doesn’t make you look strong. It makes you look afraid. And when you spend an entire campaign telling voters how terrible your opponent is but won’t stand on a stage and explain why, people are eventually going to wonder whether your opponent is actually the problem.

Or whether you are.

The irony is that Republicans have spent years portraying Democrats as weak, incompetent, out of touch, and incapable of governing. Yet here we are, watching Democratic candidates walk into rooms full of skeptical voters while Republican candidates apparently need a safe space from questions.

For a party that loves to talk about courage, strength, and personal responsibility, there seems to be an awful lot of hiding going on.

And then there’s Donald Trump.

Whatever your opinion of the man, his second term has given Democrats an extraordinary amount of material to work with. The economic uncertainty, the constant chaos, the attacks on democratic institutions, the international embarrassments, the endless self-promotion, and the apparent belief that the presidency is less a public service than a personal branding opportunity have all contributed to a political environment in which Republicans have to answer for a great deal more than their own individual records.

Unfortunately for them, the president doesn’t seem particularly interested in making that task easier.

And now Republicans are discovering that running on outrage, fear, and accusations doesn’t necessarily work forever. Eventually, people want to know what you’re actually going to do for them. Eventually, the price of groceries matters more than the latest manufactured culture-war emergency. Eventually, voters get tired of being told to fear their neighbors while watching their elected officials accomplish very little that improves their daily lives.

Apparently, some Republican candidates would rather avoid that conversation altogether.

I am not going to declare victory before the votes are counted. I’ve been around long enough to know better than to start celebrating because the scoreboard looks promising in the third quarter. Polls can be wrong, voters can surprise us, and complacency is one of the Democratic Party’s most reliable traditions.

But I will say this: I think the Republicans could be in for a political bloodbath in this election.

And if that happens, I hope Democrats understand what it means.

It won’t simply be a rejection of individual candidates. It could be a rejection of the entire governing philosophy that has dominated the Republican Party under Trump: loyalty over competence, spectacle over substance, grievance over solutions, and personal power over public responsibility.

That would be an opportunity, not a blank check.

Democrats need to remember what happened after Barack Obama won. They need to remember how quickly the enthusiasm faded, how easily victories were taken for granted, and how Republicans regrouped while Democrats argued among themselves about who was sufficiently pure to deserve the party’s support.

Winning an election is not the same thing as earning a mandate to do nothing.

If Democrats take control of Congress, they need to govern. They need to protect voting rights, strengthen healthcare, address the cost of living, invest in education and infrastructure, defend democratic institutions, and demonstrate that government can actually improve people’s lives. They need to investigate wrongdoing where evidence warrants it, hold powerful people accountable, and stop assuming that simply being the alternative to Trump is enough to keep voters in their corner.

Because it isn’t.

And if the results are as lopsided as I suspect they might be, Democrats should be thinking about 2028 immediately. Not because the next presidential election is already decided, but because the work of rebuilding public trust takes more than one election cycle.

What I would love to see is a sustained Democratic majority, one that lasts long enough to accomplish something meaningful rather than spending every other election trying to undo whatever the previous administration broke.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s political coalition offers a historical example of what that kind of durability can look like. Following his 1932 election, Democrats built a dominant national coalition that helped sustain their congressional majorities through much of the New Deal era and beyond. It wasn’t permanent, and it wasn’t without its contradictions, but it demonstrated what happens when a political party connects its electoral success to tangible changes in people’s lives.

That’s the kind of political staying power Democrats should aspire to. Not simply winning because Republicans have made themselves unbearable, but winning because voters can point to what Democrats accomplished and say, That made my life better.

Of course, that requires something more difficult than winning a news cycle. It requires consistency, discipline, and the willingness to govern for people who didn’t vote for you.

It also requires showing up.

Which brings us back to these Republican candidates who apparently believe the best way to win an election is to avoid the very people who will decide it.

With a little more than two weeks remaining, they still have time to change course. They could debate. They could answer questions. They could explain their policies and make their case to the electorate.

But if they choose not to, that’s their decision.

And if voters decide that a candidate who won’t even show up to defend their own record doesn’t deserve another term, that’s democracy doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

I won’t get happy just yet. I’ll wait until the ballots are counted, the results are certified, and the winners actually take office.

But I am cautiously optimistic that November could deliver a message Republicans desperately need to hear and Democrats desperately need to understand.

You cannot govern by grievance forever. You cannot substitute insults for answers indefinitely. And you cannot ask people to trust you while demonstrating, every single day, that you don’t trust yourself to defend what you’ve done.

So show up. Answer the questions. Debate your opponent.

Or don’t.

Just don’t act surprised when the voters decide that the party that wouldn’t show up for them doesn’t deserve to show up in Washington, either.