Time for Democrats to follow France’s lead and shift their campaign to the threat of autocracy.

Follow this authorJennifer Rubin's opinions

The French political alliance was essentially a gaggle of squabbling parties that could agree on little else but the one fundamental issue. CNN reported:

Running against fascism worked. It frankly did not matter to most French voters which faction would capture the prime ministership; what mattered was defeating a movement antithetical to France’s identity (“Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”).

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Meanwhile, the critical issue in Britain’s parliamentary system was 14 years of failed Conservative and Unionist — “Tory” — governance. The election was about, to borrow an American slogan, a return to normalcy. The victorious candidate for prime minister, Keir Starmer, took over the Labour Party only four years ago, replacing Jeremy Corbyn (infamous for antisemitism). Starmer eschewed the extreme leftist agenda, navigating back to the center. He has been criticized as dull — but that may have been a plus. (As Politico put it, “dull ordinariness is arguably his greatest electoral asset.”) When one side in an election is utterly unacceptable, the other need only be acceptable, not extraordinary.

Simply framing the election as the chance to rid Britain of the Tories was sufficient. “After 14 years in power, the Conservatives were punished at the polls for all the tumult that occurred on their watch: Brexit, which most Britons now regret; [Boris] Johnson’s partygate scandal, in which the then-prime minister threw parties while the country was under covid-19 lockdown and then Johnson lied about them; and the disastrous 2022 budget of Johnson’s successor, [Liz] Truss, which sent shockwaves through financial markets,” NPR reported.

It is a misnomer that only a positive vision can unite and stimulate a winning coalition. Sometimes, it is the fear of a concrete, hideous transformation of one’s country or the exhaustion over rank incompetence that wins the day. Fear of chaos, turmoil, incompetence and ideological rigidity can drive voters to an alternative, even a boring one.

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Project 2025 — a MAGA guide to autocracy and extremism — and the Supreme Court’s radical rulings (e.g., allowing states to criminalize abortion, preventing experts in government agencies from setting reasonable standards, empowering the president with a get-out-of-jail-free card) are the equivalent of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party. (Indeed, she said quite candidly in 2017: “A new world has emerged in these past years. It’s the world of Vladimir Putin, it’s the world of Donald Trump in the United States, it’s the world of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi in India.”) They are the building blocks of a reactionary, authoritarian government dedicated to Christian nationalism.

The task for Democrats in November, therefore, will be to make this a referendum on right-wing extremism. The folks at Lincoln Project have done just that:

Donald Trump’s plan for America is no secret. Beating Trump this November is the only mission. The Lincoln Project invites you to take a peek at the terrible future Donald Trump would impose on America. pic.twitter.com/XyynK48FG6

Biden, for now, is at the top of........

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