Michael Barone

Tuesday saw the usual first-week-of-June gaggle of state primary elections. It’s a feature of the American federal system that states choose when to hold primary and local elections.

Back in the 1850s, as historian Roy Franklin Nichols notes, there was an election in all but one or two of the 24 months in the two-year congressional election cycle. From the results, in those pre-polling days, politicos and pundits drew conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of the Democratic and Republican political parties and their various candidates.

Congress in 1872 set a single date for congressional elections, but the proliferation of primaries in the early 20th century gave us, once again, elections scheduled around the calendar. Primary elections don’t always give clues about the parties’ general election strength. But they do tell us something about the state of mind of the followers of both parties, and they sometimes bring forward candidates with the capacity for future national leadership.

This year’s primaries seem to be providing little in the way of good news for both parties’ futures. Both parties’ primary electorates seem focused on fighting the same old battles they have been fighting since Donald Trump clinched the Republican Party presidential nomination 121 months ago.

Republican primary voters have been obediently following the orders of a president who must leave office two and a half years from now. Democratic primary voters seem focused on endorsing whoever denounces him most vitriolically.

Thus, 75% of Louisiana Republicans rejected Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on May 16, 55% of Kentucky’s 4th District Republicans rejected Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on May 19, and 64% of Texas runoff primary voters rejected Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on May 26. In that last case, the votes went to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was impeached (but not convicted by the Texas House) and whose wife of 38 years is suing him “on biblical grounds.”

Democratic primary voters appear on the verge of endorsing candidates who most vibrantly radiate contempt for Trump, despite problematic signs in their own profiles. Democrats in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District nominated Adam Hamawy, an unrepentant witness for the Omar Abdel-Rahman, aka “the Blind Sheik,” in his 1995 terrorism trial; Hamawy also worked for an al-Qaeda front in Bosnia in 1994.

Democrats in Maine are in the process (through early voting) of giving their nomination on June 9 to “oysterman” Graham Platner for the Senate despite his Nazi tattoo and sexually explicit online messaging. And, judging from the most recent polling, Democrats in Michigan may be on the verge of nominating Abdul El-Sayed despite his support from anti-American influencer Hasan Piker and doubts about his claims to have worked as a physician.

America’s political parties are the oldest and third-oldest in the world – Democrats dating from 1832, Republicans from 1854 – and they have both had their troubles before, though rarely simultaneously.

Critics have pointed to polls showing more respondents identifying as independents, even though in actual elections, historically low percentages of voters split their tickets. Rules encouraging mail-in voting and allowing ballot harvesting have raised legitimate suspicions about the legitimacy of counts. California allows votes postmarked on Election Day to be counted later, which is why officials there say they may take four or five weeks to determine who wins close races.

There is a temptation to write off our current parties as hopelessly addled by loyalty to, or hatred of, Trump. But history advises caution. You can argue, as I have, that both parties these days seem engaged in self-harm, and the only question is which one will hurt itself more by poor candidate choices and tactical blunders. But worse things can happen, and have happened, in electoral democracies.

The enduring character of America’s historical parties has provided and can provide again an alternative to antidemocratic or anti-republican alternatives that may emerge, as they did in Europe a century ago.