Tom Nichols

Opinion columnist

The Democratic primary season is underway, and the fighting has begun. With the exception of the brutal swipe Sen. Kamala Harris of California took at former Vice President Joe Biden, the fighting among the candidates has stayed mostly at the level of kittens tumbling around with a ball of yarn. But within the new coalition of Democrats and disaffected Republicans and independents, all of whom want to defeat Donald Trump, it's more vicious.

The lack of trust in this new coalition is deep and pervasive. Democrats want no advice from the people who could not stop Trump from taking over the GOP. Meanwhile, the Never Trumpers, of whom I am a charter member, fear that the Democrats and their unruly coalition are going to lurch to the left, lose the Electoral College again, and hand Trump a second term while the Democratic nominee claims another victory as the imperial regent of the Pacific Coast Empire.

Why are the Never Trumpers nervous, and why is the reaction to our anxiety so hostile? The articles and responses to pieces by David Brooks, Charles Sykes and Bret Stephens, among others deeply worried about 2020, have language in them that can’t be printed in a family newspaper.

Big mistake:Democratic presidential candidates are scaring off Never Trumpers

My criticisms of Harris’ attack on Biden — which I saw as a nasty, data-driven attempt to dent Biden’s popularity among black voters — have filled my Twitter mentions for days with accusations of sexism and racism, despite my reaffirmation that I’m in for the long haul and will vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is. (Well, unless it’s Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, whom I believe is, like Trump, compromised by her coziness with foreign dictators, but who thankfully has no chance.)

Democrats risk losing the Rust Belt, again

The Democrats as a party apparently believe that the best way to defeat Trump is to swerve as hard to the left as possible in order to “energize” people in their base who otherwise might not vote. And if that means saying things that might haunt the nominee later, so be it — even if that includes embracing the abolition of private health insurance, decriminalizing illegal entry into the United States, or knocking out a centrist like Biden by implying he’s a racist.

This makes no sense in a country where the election is functionally over in about 40 states, and the fight is now over a sliver of votes in the battlegrounds. Democrats are stubbornly ignoring the realities of the Electoral College, as if the voters of Oregon or Massachusetts can turn out in droves and have their votes count as some sort of bonus electoral vote to cover what could be lost in the Midwest and Rust Belt states that Trump has proved he can win.

Also, while our news environment moves quickly, primaries do not get memory-holed once they produce a nominee. They are dangerous ground where candidates must run to the edge of their parties and then try to regain the center. This is especially a problem in 2020, when the Democrats are seeking not to expand their base but to recapture votes they lost in 2016. In the terms of a military campaign, they are facing the problem of having to pay for the same ground twice by having to secure areas they thought they already owned, from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.

Trump's name alone should energize Democrats

This kind of talk strikes liberal purists as low and cynical. They want to be energized and motivated, to feel the same excitement they felt when Barack Obama ran in 2008. Never Trumpers and others nearer the center, by contrast, do not understand any voting bloc that needs more motivation than the two words “Donald Trump.”

Many Never Trumpers like me have abandoned their party comrades (and in some cases even friendships) in the name of a pact with liberals and Democrats based on the one shared belief that Trump is an existential threat to the United States and — as shown by the president’s inane hijinks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 leading nations conference in Japan and his dangerous, stupid insistence on yet more humiliation at the hands of the North Koreans at the demilitarized zone — to the stability of the world itself.

Cocked and loaded: A wobbly Donald Trump decided not to strike Iran. We should be glad.

But the Democrats, so far, refuse to act as if this is true. “We agree with you that Trump must be stopped at all costs,” they seem to be telling us, “as long as those costs don’t include backing away from single-payer health care and a nominee who excites and thrills us, and if you disagree with us, then we don’t want you as allies.”

Personally, I have expressed no preference among Democratic contenders. (Again, except for Gabbard.) I have said that if Biden is not the person who can get the Democrats to 270 electoral votes, then the sooner he’s out of the race, the better.

But the key here is that I have just stated my only requirement for an opposition candidate: the ability to get to 270 electoral votes.

This election is a referendum on Donald Trump, and nothing else should even come close as the central issue. If Democrats cannot be “energized” or “motivated” unless the candidate meets any number of personal criteria about youth or gender or race, or is committed to policies that have almost no chance of winning in the areas Democrats need to recapture in 2020, then this is already a coalition going into electoral battle with a fundamental disagreement about why we’re all even bothering in the first place.

Tom Nichols is a national security professor at the Naval War College, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of "The Death of Expertise." The views expressed here are solely his own. Follow him on Twitter: @RadioFreeTom