Avenging Navalny

Protect democracy at home and abroad by practicing it

Last week, we covered the travesty of House Republicans impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas while killing – without reading – the Senate’s bipartisan border security and foreign aid plan due to Trump’s opposition. The urgency of the bill was made all the more apparent this week, with the killing of Alexei Navalny.

Reaction to the Russian opposition leader’s death was swift, both internationally and within what is left of the Republican Party’s foreign policy sanity caucus. Senator Thom Tillis wrote, “Navalny laid down his life fighting for the freedom of the country he loved. Putin is a murderous, paranoid dictator. History will not be kind to those in America who make apologies for Putin and praise Russian autocracy. Nor will history be kind to America’s leaders who stay silent because they fear backlash from online pundits.” 

Mike Pence tweeted, “There is no room in the Republican Party for apologists for Putin. RIP Alexey Navalny.”

But Pence is wrong – the Republican Party is rife with Putin apologists. That wing is abetted by Speaker-for-show Mike Johnson and Speaker-in-reality Donald Trump, who are blocking aid to Ukraine. Johnson’s story changes every day. First, Johnson demanded that border security provision be attached to any Ukraine aid. After painstaking negotiations between conservative Republican James Lankford and Democrat Chris Murphy, Johnson killed the agreement sight unseen under orders from Trump.

The Only Unacceptable Thing

While a vast majority of the House caucus and most House Republicans support Ukraine aid, Johnson didn’t even wait for the proposal to be drafted before killing it. Congressional reporter Jake Sherman summed up the spinelessness of moderates, quoting a moderate Republican who said: “Johnson and the leadership have talked about a "member-driven" process. Yet the leadership shot down the Senate border/aid deal without talking to any moderates, many of whom were eager to support that bill.”

But some Democratic moderates are still working on a solution. Democrats Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez - both of whom won Trump districts and now co-chair the Blue Dog Caucus - have hammered out a bipartisan deal addressing problems both foreign and domestic.

Their Republican counterpart has said he will bring a clear message to Speaker-In-Name-Only Johnson:

“Put it on the floor. Let the House work its will. The only thing that’s not acceptable is to say something’s dead on arrival and then not offer an alternative. If you wanna kill someone else’s idea…come up with your own.”

As more and more Republicans bolt for the exits, these lawmakers offer hope for what Congress could and should be: bipartisan dealmakers addressing the gravest threats facing our allies and ourselves.

They also serve as a good reminder of other Republicans who need to be shown the exit more forcefully.

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

How else to avenge Navalny? Practice democracy.

As we noted in Putin’s Man in Pennsylvania, Rep. Scott Perry chairs the extreme Freedom Caucus. He is one of six legislators to oppose requiring the preservation of evidence of Russian war crimes. The others represent districts that favor Republicans by 11, 14, 16, 19, and 22 points.

Perry, however, is vulnerable. His Harrisburg-based district gave Trump just 51% of the vote in 2020. And he is extreme. Hours after the Capitol riot, Perry voted against certifying Pennsylvania’s results. The FBI took Perry’s phone, with which he texted with federal indictee Mark Meadows about a “cyber forensic team” seeking possession of voting machines. 

The most disturbing part? Perry then won re-election with no primary opponent and a meekly funded general election challenge. This was a supply problem, not a voter demand problem. Perry won the district by 7 points on the same ballot that voters in the district gave Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro a 12-point victory. Plenty of anti-extremist Republican voters went to the ballot box and rejected the problem on the top of the ballot, they just weren’t given another lever to pull.

We set out to change that this year. Check out our Republicans Against Perry campaign and our poll release in Penn Live: 

Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry is unpopular among constituents and susceptible to a Democratic upset next year, according to a group opposing him that has released a new poll of district voters.

“We scoured the country for the most vulnerable extremist and the unlucky winner is Scott Perry,” said WelcomePAC …

WelcomePAC has put proverbial boots on the ground in four districts over the last two years. In all four, Cook Political Report has moved the race rating towards Democrats. This is a credit to our partners, from longtime center-left leaders to ex-Republicans to renegade operatives who think differently along with us to identify undervalued opportunities to challenge MAGA incumbents.

Most of all, it is a credit to the Democratic candidates - some who only recently became Democrats - who throw their careers into the fray to put democracy on offense. Consider giving to PA-10’s Democratic nominee fund and to the rest of our Win The Middle slate here.