Ever since September 9, 2016, when Hillary Clinton told an audience of liberal supporters at a New York City fundraiser that, “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Democrats have taken every opportunity to portray Donald Trump and millions of his devoted supporters as “racist … xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it,” and a threat to American democracy.
After Trump beat Clinton in the election that November, many prominent Democrats became “election deniers” because they refused to accept the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency. And after Trump entered the White House, Democrat resistance continued to take every opportunity to try and discredit the president’s authority in the eyes of the American people.
The riot at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, by an unruly mob of Trump supporters protesting the outcome of the previous November’s presidential election has been seized by the Democrats and President Biden as proof of their worst suspicions. Since that day, Democrats have repeatedly claimed that Trump and anyone who supports his Make America Great Again agenda, or who believe Trump’s claim that victory in the 2020 election had been stolen from him, pose a threat to American democracy.
In an effort to justify the sweeping condemnation of the more than 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in the 2020 election, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi organized a special January 6 committee whose true mission was to hold Trump responsible for the riot at the Capitol, in an effort to disqualify him as a viable 2024 presidential candidate.
Because Pelosi had handpicked both the Democrat and Republican members of the committee based upon their public opposition to Trump, the committee’s hearing became an elaborately staged televised show trial in which Trump and his supporters would not be permitted to tell their version of the events of that day. All the evidence presented to the committee was consistent with the Democrats’ midterm campaign narrative, which claimed that a vote for a Republican candidate was actually a vote for an “election denier” that could lead to the end of American democracy as we know it.
CAMPAIGNING IN SUPPORT OF DEMOCRACY
Democrats then adopted that blanket condemnation of Trump’s voters as one of the major themes of their midterm election campaign.
For example, in a campaign speech last week in Miami, Biden insisted that the Trump threat to democracy “is really deadly earnest, man. Democracy is on the ballot this year.” In another speech last week, Biden told his audience, “I ask you to think long and hard about the moment we’re in. In a typical year, we’re often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk.”
Many political observers believe Biden has repeatedly emphasized the alleged threat posed by Trump to democracy in recent speeches in an effort to prevent the midterm election from becoming a referendum on his dismal performance during the first two years of his presidency.
Because of Biden’s low job approval numbers, many Democrat candidates across the country were reluctant to appear with him at their rallies. Instead, former president Barack Obama took on the role of galvanizing the Democrat voter base. Speaking at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, last week, Obama presented the same argument, claiming that the Republican “cast of characters” running in Arizona could not be trusted. “If you’ve got an election denier serving as your governor, as your senator, as your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy, as we know it, may not survive in Arizona,” Obama warned.
VOTERS SKEPTICAL THAT REPUBLICANS POSE A THREAT
However, pre-election opinion polls consistently showed that most voters were not buying the Democratic claim that Republican candidates threaten democracy, and that any concerns they may have over the future of American democracy trailed far behind their worries over the issues of inflation and violent crime, which Republicans were emphasizing.
Some Democrats even said that when Biden, speaking in Philadelphia, denounced Republicans as fascists plotting to overthrow democracy, he had gone too far and was himself guilty of political incitement. Nevertheless, Democrat candidates and their liberal supporters in the mainstream media continued to repeat the claim that if the GOP prevails in the midterm elections, and wins control over the House and Senate, American democracy could be lost.
Republicans reject Democrat claims that they pose a threat to democracy by citing the actions of then-vice president Mike Pence and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who rejected Trump’s demands on January 6 that they halt the election certification process and carried out their constitutional duties. Several of the federal judges appointed by President Trump also proved their independence from partisan political influences by rejecting, for lack of evidence, the legal challenges which Trump’s lawyers had brought in an effort to disqualify the official vote counts in several states.
Their determination to resist political pressure and faithfully carry out their duties under the law is a convincing rebuttal to Democrat claims that once elected, Republican candidates would put their allegiance to Donald Trump ahead of the responsibilities of their office.
HOW DEMOCRATS WANT TO REMAKE THE FEDERAL GOVERMENT
On the other hand, Republicans insist that it is the Democrats who pose the most serious threat to American democracy. By demanding major changes in the basic institutions of the federal government, such as the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the Electoral College, Democrats would undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances which have safeguarded American democracy and the rights of all its citizens for more than 230 years.
For example, Democrats had no complaints about the political bias of the justices on the Supreme Court during the more than 60 years when it was dominated by liberal justices, beginning with Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1953. In addition to Roe v. Wade, during that period the Supreme Court handed down many other decisions based upon liberal legal arguments. Yet despite their disagreement with those rulings, Republicans and conservatives accepted them as the law of the land and did not challenge the court’s authority.
But now that there is a stable majority of conservative justices on the court which struck down the Roe v. Wade decision, Democrats are attacking the legitimacy of the court and calling upon President Biden to appoint enough activist liberal justices to neutralize the current conservative majority and issue rulings that will support the Democrats’ liberal policy goals.
Liberal Democrats have also been calling for radical changes to the structure of the US Senate, such as the elimination of the filibuster, which would enable Democrats to run roughshod over dissenting minorities and impose their liberal agenda on the country without a clear mandate from the voters. They also seek the elimination of the Electoral College, which was designed to assure that an elected president enjoys the broad support of voters across the country.
Both these provisions were incorporated into the Constitution more than 200 years ago as part of a grand compromise which assured smaller states that upon joining the Union, they would not be subject to domination by the larger states such as California, New York, and Illinois.
Democrats are also proposing to grant statehood status to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, because that would give them four more reliably Democrat votes, both in the Senate and the Electoral College.
THE ISSUE OF ELECTION SECURITY
Democrats have also weakened the safeguards which had been in place across the country before the Covid-19 pandemic to prevent election fraud. Instead, they worked to eliminate the requirement for individuals to verify their identities before allowing them to vote, and to legalize vote harvesting, which would make it easier for party activists to manipulate the vote count.
Democrats have also sought to undermine the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech by encouraging the corporate censorship of conservative ideas on social media, and characterizing anyone who publicly dissents from liberal policies as a fascist, a bigot, and a threat to democracy.
Altogether, it’s clear that it is the Democrats, rather than the Republicans, who now seek to make sweeping changes to the American form of government, designed to give them permanent control of the White House and Congress for the foreseeable future. In other words, to “save American democracy,” Democrats are now proposing to turn America into a one-party state by suppressing any dissenting opinions.
DEMOCRATS IGNORING THE VOTERS TO PURSUE THEIR AGENDA
Another threat to American democracy is the tendency of Democrat candidates to ignore the issues which are of greatest concern to their voters, while giving top priority to the promotion of their own liberal ideological goals, such the forced transition of the US economy from reliance on dependable fossil fuels to more expensive and unreliable green energy sources.
In this midterm election cycle, Democrat candidates have been campaigning primarily on liberal issues such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade which polls show most voters don’t care that much about, in addition to stoking voter fears over the alleged threat all “ultra-MAGA Republican” candidates pose to democracy.
REPUBLICANS ARE HEEDING VOTER CONCERNS
During the midterm campaign, it was primarily Republicans candidates who addressed the most important voter concerns. Chief among them is the runaway inflation triggered by Biden’s excess spending, which now threatens to plunge the economy into recession.
Republicans also promised to restore respect for this country’s institutions, as well as law and order, which had both been undermined by Democrats who supported the Black Lives Matter calls to “defund” the police. They have also promised to get rid of the liberal prosecutors in many large cities who are more interested in allowing criminals to walk free than protecting the safety of their victims by keeping the criminals behind bars.
By contrast, Democrats campaigning for office have insulted the intelligence of the voters by claiming that the US economy is still strong, and that the Biden administration’s continuing war against the domestic fossil fuel industry was not the single greatest factor driving the soaring cost of energy for both consumers and businesses.
A QUESTION OF HONESTY
As a result, many voters have become frustrated by the refusal of the Biden White House and Democrat officials to be honest about the obvious problems their liberal policies have created. Democrats continue to deny that they have precipitated an immigration crisis at the southern border, and have sought to demonize as “domestic terrorists” those parents across the country who have revolted against the progressive activists who extended the unnecessary closure of schools during the pandemic and who have radicalized the standard curriculum being taught to their young children.
Instead, it has been President Biden — and the officials he has appointed — who have repeatedly exceeded their legal and constitutional authority in the pursuit of their liberal political objectives. These include Biden’s proposed mandate to force all workers to take the Covid vaccine (which the Supreme Court eventually struck down), as well as his announcement forgiving $500 billion of federal student loans without even consulting with Congress, and which is also now being reviewed by the courts. In addition, Biden has violated his oath of office by refusing to enforce the federal laws requiring him to close the southern border to waves of illegal immigrants.
If Biden is right and American democracy is under threat, it is primarily because he and his fellow Democrats believe that their narrow control over the White House and the two houses of Congress gives them the authority to force the public to accept their radical social, economic, and environmental ideas, with utter disregard for what voters think.
DEMOCRAT DIRTY TRICKS
The current disconnect between Democrat candidates and the working-class voters who used to be the core of the Democrat base has been developing for years, due to the gradual takeover by progressive liberals and the privileged elite of the party’s political platform.
By 2016, Democrat liberals had convinced themselves that they had decisively won the long cultural war against traditional moral and religious values, and they felt entitled to do anything necessary to defeat Donald Trump because he had made himself into the chief advocate for Americans who still clung to those values.
House Democrats then tried force Trump from office by launching two separate impeachment efforts against him, both of which failed. But the unprecedented effort by politically motivated government officials to drive the president from office was itself extremely damaging to American democracy by undermining the belief of voters in the political impartiality of federal law enforcement institutions.
In addition, the willingness of reporters and major news outlets to violate their own journalistic standards of fairness in their reporting on Donald Trump was also a blow to democracy, because it denied the public access to unbiased coverage of Trump and his campaign.
PUTTING THE JANUARY 6 RIOT IN PROPER CONTEXT
The second Democrat impeachment effort was triggered by the riot at Capitol Hill by thousands of Trump supporters who believed his claim that due to massive Democrat voter fraud in several states, he had been robbed of victory in his 2020 bid for a second term.
On January 6, 2021, Trump had invited his supporters across the country to come to the White House to hear him make his case that he actually won that election. After Trump concluded his speech to his supporters, who had gathered outside the White House, he encouraged them to march peacefully for several blocks to Capitol Hill to protest the certification of Biden’s victory by a joint session of Congress.
Unfortunately, even though the Capitol police force had been warned in advance about the protest, security measures were inadequate to hold the protesters back, enabling 2,000 of them to break into the building and temporarily delay the vote certification process.
Some of the protesters were members of extreme right-wing groups, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters, who had come prepared to battle police. Once inside, the rioters vandalized the building and terrorized the senators and congressmen present.
Meanwhile, President Trump was back in the White House, watching the riot on television, and allowing it to continue for several hours before calling upon his supporters to “go home in peace.” Still, no evidence was ever found that Trump had any advance knowledge that right-wing groups had planned to turn the protest at the Capitol into a riot.
Trump’s refusal of requests by his White House aides to send in the National Guard to restore order at the Capitol was clearly a dereliction of duty, but there is also no evidence that Trump had intended for the riot to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden.
In fact, contrary to the Democrat narrative, the riot was not an armed effort to overthrow the government. In the end, all the rioters accomplished was to delay the certification of Biden’s victory by a few hours.
HYPOCRITICAL DEMOCRAT CAMPAIGN AGAINST “ELECTION DENIERS”
Nevertheless, Democrats used the riot as proof that Trump’s supporters were dangerous, and that anyone who believed his claim that he had been robbed of victory due to massive Democrat voter fraud were “election deniers” who posed a serious threat American democracy.
Even though the second impeachment process played out after Trump had left the White House, its goal was to disqualify Trump from running again in 2024 and demonize his supporters for believing that Trump was a victim of election fraud.
But when Democrats condemned supporters as “election deniers,” they ignored the historical fact that in previous presidential elections won by Republicans, it was the Democrats who acted as “election deniers” by challenging the official vote count.
For example, in the 2000 presidential election, Democrat candidate Al Gore refused to accept the official Florida vote count vote, which indicated that Republican candidate, George W. Bush, had won its decisive Electoral College vote by a margin of just 525 votes. Democrats then launched an intense campaign to discredit that vote count, and insisted on a hand recount in the expectation that it would result in a reversal of the initial result. While that recount was ultimately stopped by the Supreme Court, many Democrats were outraged, and many never accept the legitimacy of Bush’s presidential victory.
Similarly, after the 2016 presidential election, several prominent House Democrats — including Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, Barbara Lee of California, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Maxine Waters of California, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and James McGovern of Massachusetts — refused to accept the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s victory, and unsuccessfully tried to block congressional certification of the Electoral College outcome.
But unlike the treatment of Donald Trump’s supporters, these Democrats were not labeled as “election deniers” and their attempt to challenge the election’s outcome was not condemned as a threat to democracy. Instead, Democrats, with the eager assistance of the mainstream media, launched an organized “resistance” effort to Trump’s legitimacy which continues to this day.
Many prominent Democrats have also accepted the claim by Stacey Abrams that she, rather than Brian Kemp, was the true winner of the 2016 Georgia gubernatorial campaign, and that she was victimized by Republican vote suppression tactics.
Apparently, Democrats believe that only Republican “election deniers” pose a threat to democracy. They apparently have reserved the right only to themselves to challenge the outcome of a close election in the name of democracy — especially when the name of the winner is Donald Trump.
