Playing Dirty or Just Plain Playing — The Game of Political Hardball

Politics with Amy Walter

Since the midterm elections, we’ve seen a number of examples of hardball tactics. In Wisconsin, Republicans stripped power from the newly elected Governor Democrat Tony Evers. Republicans in Michigan tried a similar maneuver, but the bills were vetoed by the outgoing governor, also a Republican.

But it’s not just Republicans using aggressive political tactics. Democrats in New Jersey proposed a constitutional amendment for redistricting that would essentially solidify their party’s control of the state legislature for the next decade. The idea prompted a mass backlash, notably from folks from within the same party, like the state’s Democratic Governor Phil Murphy.

In Alabama, a group of Democratic tech experts used deceptive social media tactics similar to the Russians in the 2016 presidential elections to influence the Special Senate race last year on behalf of now Senator Doug Jones, according to a report from The New York Times.

So, is all this wheeling and dealing just politics as usual or has something fundamentally changed? This hour on Politics with Amy Walter from The Takeaway, we take a look at constitutional hardball, who's playing clean, who's playing dirty, and whether or not they out to be playing at all.

Guests:

David Pozen is a professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

Clare Malone is a senior political writer at FiveThirtyEight.

Doug Heye has held communications positions in the House, Senate, RNC, as well as serving in the George W. Bush administration.

Karine Jean-Pierre is a senior adviser at Move On.

Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Myrna Pérez is the Deputy Director of the Brennan Center's Democracy Program and leader of the Center's Voting Rights and Elections project.

Amy's Final Take: Over the last few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about institutions and why and how they fail. And, I grapple with the question of whether the dismantling and disruption of our political norms and structures are just a normal, healthy but painful process of democracy. Kind of like a forest fire is good because of the way it clears dead brush and encourages new growth. Or, is what is happening today the beginning of a descent into a dark and dangerous place where rules and guardrails no longer guide us.

In talking with the guests for this show - and others who are thinking a lot about these things - I am cautiously optimistic. The most dangerous threat to our political system is that people disengage from it; that it becomes so discredited that no one believes their voice or vote matters. The 2018 election showed us that voters aren’t walking away. Turnout was higher than any previous midterm election in over 100 years. And, as the Brennan Center’s Myrna Pérez noted, the path to progress isn’t always linear. And, in an era of Instagram, insta-pots and insta-news, it’s hard to remain patient when we see things moving in the wrong direction. Most fundamentally, our system is built on faith. If we lose it, we will lose everything.