Thank you, Derek Schmidt. You acted like a normal Republican and wished Kansas well

The time has come to give sincere thanks to Derek Schmidt.

Schmidt, the now-failed GOP candidate for Kansas governor, wasn’t really my cup of tea. He ran a campaign based on fearmongering and culture warfare that barely bothered to articulate a vision for the state’s future. I’m not sorry that he lost.

So why the thanks? Because when Schmidt lost, he lost so normally.

He conceded. He didn’t file any lawsuits. He didn’t call on his supporters to stage protests. There was no “Stop the Steal” movement in Kansas. He didn’t shake the system. Instead, Schmidt acknowledged the voters had spoken, and offered Gov. Laura Kelly good wishes for the next four years.

Was it the right thing to do? Absolutely.

Was it a sure thing in the age of Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s election denialism? Not at all. So thanks must be given.

To be fair, Schmidt never appeared to be a vigorous proponent of the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Yes, he was part of a group of Republican attorneys general who challenged Pennsylvania’s electoral votes that year, but when that suit failed, he said it was time to move on. And while Trump endorsed him during the recent campaign, Schmidt didn’t make Trumpism central to his political identity.

So perhaps Schmidt wasn’t the biggest threat to democracy in Kansas.

Still, there were reasons to worry that something ugly might happen during this election. The race was close — Kelly won by just under 20,000 votes — which potentially offered an avenue for mischief.

In Johnson County, Sheriff Calvin Hayden spent much of the last year in a baseless search for election fraud in his jurisdiction, unable to accept that his once-stolidly-Republican neighbors are mostly Democratic voters now.

In August, antiabortion activists challenged the results of the “Value Them Both” amendment election, demanding a recount — even though the “no” vote won by a nearly 20-point landslide.

And in September, a small group of activists filed a federal suit challenging the results of the 2020 election in Kansas, while demanding an all-paper ballot election this November.

Hayden’s investigation has so far produced nothing but headlines. The results of August’s election still stand. And the judge in the federal lawsuit quickly dismissed it. But all of this happened in the shadow of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection and the subsequent national rise of election-denying candidates all across the right.

There was reason to be nervous.

The most prominent of those national candidates — Kari Lake and Blake Masters in Arizona, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Tudor Dixon in Michigan — all lost last week, thank goodness. Bravo to the voters in all those states who saw the threat to American democracy clearly and responded accordingly. Without them, we might be having a very different conversation today.

Strikingly, most of those Trumpist candidates conceded their races, if not always gracefully or in timely fashion. To them — and to Schmidt — we should offer grateful thanks. They could have chosen chaos. Instead, they did the normal thing, and allowed the system to work normally.

You might ask why we should give thanks for that. Isn’t conceding a lost election the way the democratic system is supposed to work? You shouldn’t get a cookie for doing the thing you’re supposed to do, should you?

That’s understandable. But you’ve probably also noticed the fragility of that system in recent years. Despite last week’s results, the challenges continue. Trump on Tuesday night announced he is running again for president in 2024. We know his history: Either he’ll win the election, or claim — again — that it was stolen from him.

So the work of saving American democracy is not done yet.

That means those who defend that system, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, need our support to win their elections. And it means we must work to reinforce the good habits of democracy, even and especially among those who might be tempted to let it slip away.

Derek Schmidt did the right thing. He conceded. For that, he has earned our thanks.