Democrats are planning an insurrection of their own, apparently

Congressional Democrats are actively considering blocking the certification of the election results in the event of a Trump victory, the very same thing they claim makes him and his fellow Republicans insurrectionists, demonstrating once again that Democracy is whatever they say it is at the moment.

To hear Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media, January 6 was among the worst events in the entire history of the country, a day where we almost lost democracy itself and came within a whisker of descending into a totalitarian state with former President Trump as dictator for life.  Rather than a shameful riot run amuck, aided by insufficient security at the Capitol Building itself, Democrats regularly refer to it as an insurrection, believing that President Trump was attempting to overthrow the entire US government by urging Vice President Mike Pence and other Republicans in Congress not to certify the results of the 2020 election.  So adamant are they in this belief, that many believe the former President should be barred from running again due to a clause in the 14th amendment that excludes insurrectionists from office.  Most also support the two indictments against President Trump for his role in January 6 and his preceding objections to the election, one in Federal Court, one in Fulton County, Georgia, and believe the former President should be convicted of multiple crimes and confined to jail for an extended sentence.  Rhetorically, the notion that President Trump represents a unique threat to democracy is a common refrain from Democrats in general, including President Biden himself.  Last month, President Biden said specifically that “Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.  He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.”  These thoughts are echoed far and wide throughout the media.  Time Magazine recently claimed that “Trump’s Constitutional Bullying Is a Threat to Our Democratic Safeguards,” concluding that “Next fall’s election, even more than the last, will test whether the Constitution and its democratic safeguards, not revenge or threats of violence, will be as the Constitution says, ‘the supreme law of the land.’”  Last year, The Atlantic declared that “Trump’s Threat to Democracy is Now Systemic.”  The Hill, meanwhile, took a slightly different tack, insisting that “a second Trump presidency is an existential national security threat to our democracy.”  “In a second term, Donald Trump will undoubtedly appoint leaders who will do his bidding, even if that means violating the rule of law, our democratic norms and the Constitution. The handful of Constitutional crises we faced during his first term may well number in the thousands the next time around, as safeguards are removed and the most important qualification for political appointments becomes personal loyalty to the president.”

Based on the unprecedented combination of political rhetoric, court cases, and legal challenges to an election that remains months away, one might be led to believe that Democrats are intent on ensuring a free and fair outcome in 2024, where the voters and the voters alone decide who will be our next President.  After all, that’s what democracy is all about, isn’t it?  Those who have been paying even slightly closer attention over the past 25 years, however, likely know better.  Democracy is only important to Democrats and their progressive allies when it advances their political goals and provides a potential pathway to power, or as I have put it, democracy means whatever they want it to mean at any given moment and they wouldn’t know real democracy if it bit them in the ass.  Therefore, it was little surprise when The Atlantic reported last week that Congressional Democrats are already considering options to block the certification of President Trump in the House of Representatives if he prevails with the people on Tuesday, November 5.  Piggybacking on the current dispute over whether or not the former President is allowed to run in the first place, Russell Burman reported on “How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t.”  At issue is a potential Supreme Court decision that clears the former President to appear on the ballot, but does not formally rule on whether he should be disqualified as an insurrectionist.  To the average person, this might suggest that President Trump couldn’t possibly be disqualified, as how could a disqualified candidate be allowed on the ballot in the first place, but to those who are seeking to remove him, a limited ruling could create a Constitutional crisis after the election, or so they insist as the seek ways to overturn an outcome they don’t like.  The idea was first raised by Jason Murray, the attorney representing Colorado in the Supreme Court case concerning the 14th amendment.  “If this Court concludes that Colorado did not have the authority to exclude President Trump from the presidential ballot on procedural grounds, I think it could come back with a vengeance because, ultimately, members of Congress would have to make the determination after a presidential election if President Trump wins about whether or not he is disqualified from office and whether to count votes cast for him under the Electoral Count Reform Act,” Mr. Murray said.  In The Atlantic’s view, “Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him.” 

This is an odd way of saying that Democrats are empowered to choose between the rightful winner and their own preference for who the rightful winner should have been, that Democrats and Democrats alone can overturn an election as they see fit.  Further, “Their choice could be decisive: As their victory in a House special election in New York last week demonstrated, Democrats have a serious chance of winning a majority in Congress in November, even if Trump recaptures the presidency on the same day. If that happens, they could have the votes to prevent him from taking office.”  Even more than eight months before the election will actually take place, Congressional leaders have subtly affirmed they will undemocratically defy the will of the voters by insisting the Supreme Court needs to positively affirm President Trump’s eligibility.  As Mr. Burman put it, “senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility,” meaning they will block the certification of the results if they see fit.  A trio of legal scholars buttressed this view, insisting “it is a certainty” they will not certify the rightful winner should the Supreme Court issue a narrow decision.  Democrat Representative Zoe Lofgren appeared to agree, telling The Atlantic that President Trump is “clearly ineligible,” admitting the problem is “very murky,” but then insisting he could block the certification anyway, saying “I might be” when asked if he would be one of the lawmakers that would do so.  Representative Jaime Raskin said something similar and added that nothing – not even the threat of violence and unrest that might result if they block the rightful winner – could stop them.  “We might just decide that’s something we need to prepare for,” he said.  Representative Jim Clyburn would only say that President Trump is an “insurrectionist” who should not be allowed to run.  Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell believe the same, with Representative Schiff in particular saying that he didn’t “want to get into the chaos hypothetical” of the question, though both stopped short of endorsing the plan.  To his credit, Representative Swalwell noted the blindingly obvious “It would be doing what I didn’t like about the January 6 Republicans.”

Why this is not the focus of the entire story remains a mystery:  After all, the Democrats are actively pursuing the very strategy of blocking the certification of election results under dubious legal guise that they claim disqualifies Trump from office in the first place.  The incredibly hypocritical, hyper partisan circularity to this argument should be self-evident, a serpent devouring its own tail to protect democracy.  Self-evident, but far from surprising.  This is the same party that has claimed every Republican presidential victory this century has been illegitimate, the result of either balloting mistakes and the intervention of  the Supreme Court (2000), hacked voting machines (2004), and Russian interference (2016).  Democrats that are still in office to this day personally objected to these results and refused to certify them, but as we can see from their plans, this is only an insurrection when President Trump or the Republicans do it.  When Democrats pursue suspect strategies to change the results of an election – including illegally influencing electors in 2016, which they would like to throw Trump in jail for – it’s to protect democracy.  This is effectively the position of President Biden himself, who has not weighed in on this particular development, but who has suggested that it is perfectly acceptable to deny voters their right to choose his opponent in the first place.  After the Democrat dominated Supreme Court in Colorado ruled that President Trump can be removed from the ballot in the state, President Biden had an opportunity to stand up for the fundamental democratic tenet that people can choose their own leaders free from government interference.  He could have issued a statement that requested his fellow Democrats stop pursuing these suspect legal strategies to ensure the country has a free and fair election.  Instead, he did nothing of the sort, suggesting that he would accept the court’s decision, but if it were up to him, President Trump would not be on the ballot, insisting “It’s self-evident. You saw it all.  Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision.  But he certainly supported an insurrection.  No question about it. None. Zero. And he seems to be doubling down on about everything.”  This from a man who recently asked us, “Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?  I mean it.  This is not rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical.  Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time, and it’s what the 2024 election is all about.” 

Apparently, democracy no longer means you have the right to vote for who you want, only who they allow you to vote for, but at the risk of repeating myself, this is disappointing yet not surprising:  Progressives bragged to the media about a conspiracy to influence the 2020 election and corruptly alter laws to support mass mail in voting, among other suspect strategies.  Then, they acted shocked beyond reason that the majority of Republicans do not believe the election was conducted fairly, as though that weren’t always one of the obvious outcomes of their own “cabal” as they described it themselves.  Of course, they claim they were not “rigging” the election.  They were “fortifying” it – against President Trump, which is the same as rigging it to any honest observer.  Anyone who thinks they will not do the same again has not been paying attention.