Martin Gurri wrote this before the Iowa caucuses:

We are a nation of rules. American politics and government are defined by rules. “Our democracy” is an empty abstraction: it doesn’t really exist. Instead, we have rules and procedures for choosing those who govern us and for holding them accountable. The rules aren’t immutable; they evolve, but slowly and with care. This feels boring and uninspiring. It was designed to be that way and it is precisely what makes our country great. If you want excitement, you’ll get a Fidel Castro. That’s the place I came from—a land of political overstimulation and seven decades of tyranny.

We are a nation of rules and the rules are boring. Embrace that. In times of difficulty, go with the boring option. When faced with a frightening crisis, tamp it down with ultra-boring moves. No matter what, stick with the rules.

I can’t avoid talking about Donald Trump, but I’m going to make it brief. I know a lot of you don’t like him. Neither do I. But let’s assume he’s only a politician. He’s not Hitler, Godzilla, or the Beast of the Apocalypse—just a guy with a loud mouth and a desperate need for attention. Most Americans think of him that way.

This is not about him. It’s about you.

When you demonize those who disagree with you, you invite treatment in kind. When you refuse to engage in political argument and resort to performative moralizing, you make it clear to any neutral observer that, for you, there’s only one side, one opinion, one conformist crowd that can ever govern legitimately. The rest are disgusting subhumans who should never be tolerated near the levers of power. When you trample on the rules that say “all are created equal” like that, you are destroying the fabric that holds the country together. And believe me when I say this: you will reap the whirlwind.

Free speech is a rule among us. It’s closely bound to the search for truth. When you justify state censorship, you pitch your camp in the kingdom of lies. And believe me: the chaos you impose from above will erupt with a million times the force and consume you from below.

The law exists to maintain order. It’s not for settling our political disputes. That’s the rule. When you criminalize dissent and equate nonconformity with terrorism, you have lost the thread of how this country works. When you joke about putting opponents in reeducation camps so they can be converted into loyal followers, you channel the regime in Cuba. When you prosecute an opposition presidential candidate, you practice the same style of mafia politics as Vladimir Putin in Russia. When you ban a candidate’s name from the ballot to preserve “our democracy,” you sound, frankly, like you have gone nuts. And believe me: it will come back to haunt you.

You and I may disagree but I have no wish to dismiss you as a moral abomination, or prosecute you for your political views, or disqualify the candidates you prefer. Disagreement is information—it’s a favor you do for me by calling out the potential gaps and the mistakes in the opinions I hold. I realize that, in the excitement of the moment, it feels like an enormous gulf separates us. But that is only true if you want it to be. Distance is always a matter of perspective. And you know perfectly well that in your family and among your friends, there are individuals who disagree with you politically—people just like you except for this one little thing. You are not so different from them. From where I stand, you and I are not so distant, either.

The two big parties will nominate their candidates. A few outsiders may find their way onto the ballot. We, the American people, as we have done for more than two centuries, will choose among them. The results will be counted state by state and sent to the Electoral College. Those are the rules. If you mess with them, there will be hell to pay. If your side wins, be boring about it—no censorship, no demonization, no show trials. People will love you for it. If your side loses, ask yourself why. Fake news? Russian manipulation? Systemic racism? The totalitarian temptation? Each of those narratives is an insult to the American people, for whom you must retain some vestige of affection and respect.

If your side loses, look in the mirror. You are the reason your side lost in 2016. A man like Trump can only get elected because he’s not you and there are few alternatives. Reflect on how you can win back those who feel so disenfranchised that they would vote for such a man over your choice.

Whatever the outcome, we’ll have to live together. Talk of resistance and civil war is exciting but self-destructive. Be boring instead. Look for common ground in politics. If there is none, then look to our common humanity. Our differences of opinion may seem profound, but all of us want what is best for our families, the neighborhoods we live in, and the country we love. We can raise our voices in anger but there should be no malice in this debate. If after 700,000 Americans died in battle, Lincoln felt no malice toward the enemy, we can do the same after a presidential election—win or lose.

I’m only a voice crying out from inside a media ghetto, but I wish that you could hear me and we could find a way to talk. I wish we could push aside the worst among us and bring the best forward to be the beating heart of this crazy pluralistic society. I wish I could open your eyes and let you see yourself the way people see you. For all our sakes, I wish I could persuade you that the rules are the rules, and breaking them is suicide. And don’t take it the wrong way, friend, but I’m going to wish you—and all of us—a very boring 2024.

Rich Lowry:

We are about to embark on what might be one of the wildest years in the history of American politics, and it may end up merely as a prelude.

If 2024 is set to be tumultuous and unpredictable, just wait until 2025 if Donald Trump wins the presidency again later this year.

His adversaries don’t have a history of accepting his victories with equanimity. Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016 launched conspiracy theories about how Russia had helped him win, catalyzed a yearslong law-enforcement investigation into him and his campaign based on those theories, and set off protests in the streets.

All that was mild, given what may yet be in the offing.

Trump’s opponents are sincerely, and to some extent understandably, alarmed by his conduct after the 2020 election and how he’s branded his political comeback as a revenge tour.

For most of them, though, saving democracy doesn’t mean upholding the rules no matter what and letting the voters decide the election and the fate of the next president. No, it means blocking Donald Trump by any means necessary, regardless of the consequences for the rule of law, democratic politics, or faith in our system of government.

In this view, democracy has only one legitimate outcome, and it doesn’t involve Donald Trump back at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Some Democrats deserve minimal credit for distancing themselves from the Colorado and Maine decisions striking Trump from the ballot and arguing that the right way to defeat Trump is via the voting booth, although this isn’t much of a concession.

What’s already happened has put the country in an unprecedented place. It is hard to imagine what’s more extreme than one side in our politics indicting its leading opponent, creating the real prospect of jailing him in the months prior to an election, and excluding him from the ballot in select states.

Yet, if Trump wins, we have to assume that this is only a taste of things to come. It’s not as though his enemies are going to conclude that Trump was an intolerable threat as a candidate, but once he’s been elected president again, the voters have spoken and everyone should revert to politics as usual.

The Washington Post ran a long, much-discussed essay by respected foreign-policy writer Robert Kagan arguing that Trump has brought the U.S. to the brink of dictatorship. If he returns to power, it will mean “the price of opposing him becomes persecution, the loss of property and possibly the loss of freedom.”

This dire view depends on every institutional bulwark of America’s system — from the courts to the military to public opinion — surrendering to a one-term president who, if history is any guide, will get rebuked in the midterms and become a lame duck by his third year in office.

But if tyranny is where you think we are headed, what’s the appropriate response? Running anti-Trump super-PAC ads this year? Canvassing for President Biden? Going on CNN panels to sound very concerned? In other words, simply all the standard means of political organization and persuasion?

And if Trump emerges victorious, and the alleged dictatorship is underway in earnest?

Certainly, the reaction will make the pro-Hamas protests that have roiled college campuses and disrupted transportation nodes around the country look small-scale by comparison. If the republic is supposedly on the verge of falling, extra-legal means of resistance are justified.

At least some portion of the Left will convince itself that only a color revolution can save the country.

Prior to the 2016 Trump–Clinton contest, one school of Trump supporters posited that it was the “Flight 93 election” — possibly the last chance to save the country. The consequences of failure were so awful that anything was justified to win. Now, that’s the way the Left feels, except Trump won his Flight 93 election, and Joe Biden could well lose his.

If so, there will be much to fear from democracy’s self-styled defenders.