Desperate people will say anything. And the radical left is getting desperate as they look toward the November election.
They can’t run on the economy. Voters know that inflation wiped out any financial gains, providing less buying power than available four years ago.
They can’t hide behind the COVID pandemic as they did in 2020. Increasingly, Americans are realizing that the lockdowns and compulsory vaccinations probably did more harm than good.
They can’t run on foreign policy – not after the Afghanistan debacle, which encouraged Russia to invade Ukraine, Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel, and bolder moves by China and North Korea.
They certainly can’t run on the border, which has become a non-border, letting in terrorists and criminals as well as people who will take jobs from Americans.
And their principal candidate, President Biden, is becoming a liability, and Vice President Harris even more so.
So in desperation, they have developed a new campaign theme: This is a campaign to “Save Our Democracy.”
Never mind that the Constitution’s framers did not establish a pure democracy with unfettered majority rule; they established a constitutional republic with limits on government power and protection for minority rights. But we also recognize that people loosely use the term “democracy” today to refer to representative government in general.
And never mind that none of Biden’s predecessors ever established a dictatorship. In fact, some of them abolished regulations, thereby divesting power from the executive branch.
Let me suggest that, if there is a threat to “democracy,” that threat comes from the radical left.
As Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence before enumerating grievances against George III, “To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.”
The radical left has used the executive branch to greatly expand federal power. As of July 2, 2024, the current administration “signed 139 executive orders, 190 presidential memoranda, 629 proclamations, and 129 notices,” Ballotpedia tells us. While fewer than those signed by the previous administration, many of them expand federal power while some past orders deregulated the economy and limited federal power.
Furthermore, many memoranda coming from the executive branch are really executive orders under the guise of memoranda issued to avoid legal requirements for the adoption of an executive order, such as pre-publication and public comment. On four occasions the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the regulations from the radical left as usurping the authority of Congress: National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA (2022) (OSHA vaccine requirements exceeded authority granted to OSHA by Congress); West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022) (EPA carbon emissions regulations exceeded authority granted to EPA by Congress); Biden v. Nebraska (2023) (Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan exceeded authority delegated to him by Congress – but Biden defied the Supreme Court with a slightly modified plan that will cost the taxpayers at least $870 billion); Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) (holding that courts rather than administrative agencies must interpret federal laws).
The radical left has usurped the powers of states and local school boards, ordering LGBTQ policies that states, school boards and parents do not want, while requiring teachers and students to use “personal pronouns” that violate their free speech rights and, in some cases, their religious convictions.
The radical left has ruined women’s athletics by forcing them to compete against supposedly transgendered men.
The radical left has weaponized the FBI and the Department of Justice, ordering them to treat parents as terrorists for objecting to leftist school board policies, prosecuting peaceful abortion protesters under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), punishing with fines and disbarment attorneys who advance what they call unorthodox theories of law, threatening to revoke the medical licenses of doctors who dare question Dr. Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control, and bringing numerous criminal charges against Biden’s leading opponent in the 2024 election.
The radical left has leaned on social media, pressuring them to “deplatform” those whose views do not conform to their orthodoxy.
The radical left has nominated and confirmed federal judges and one Supreme Court justice who believe in the “Living Constitution” and reject jurisprudence of original intent, and who thereby are willing to recognize government powers that are not found in the Constitution.
The radical left has vowed to reinstate Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that created a “right” to abortion even though it is not found in the Constitution, thereby depriving the people and the states of their right to regulate abortion by the democratic process. They have also misused the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to force the State of Idaho to permit abortions in violation of state law (Moyle v. United States, 2024; case remanded to lower courts for further determination).
The radical left pushed for strict gun control laws, ignoring the warnings of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in “The Federalist Papers” that an armed populace is a necessary defense against federal tyranny, while also ignoring the observation of Justice Joseph Story that the Second Amendment is the outer palladium of the defense of liberty.
The radical left has misused federal evidence-tampering charges to excessively punish a Jan. 6 protester. (See Fischer v. United States (2024), a case that could affect at least 300 other Jan. 6 defendants.)
The radical left has used illegal and unconstitutional means to alter election laws and voting requirements to encourage and facilitate illegal voting. There are two ways of depriving you of your right to vote: (1) Not allowing you to vote; or (2) Canceling out your vote with the vote of an illegal voter.
The radical left, with the cooperation of the mainstream media, has hidden from the public the true extent of Biden’s cognitive decline, leaving Americans in the dark about who is actually pulling the strings of government. Now the secret is out, with much of the Democrat leadership trying to undo the will of Democrat voters expressed in primaries by slipping in a new candidate. This is “saving democracy?"
In these and many other ways, the radical left has violated constitutional limitations, bypassed Congress and the courts, centralized the powers of government, and forced its agenda upon state and local governments and the people. As the Declaration of Independence says, “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
I make no dire predictions that our constitutional republic, or what’s left of it, will end after the November 2024 election. I only say that if there is a threat to “democracy as we know it,” that threat comes from the radical left.
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu) and as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law (morallaw.org). He may be reached for speaking engagements at eidsmoeja@juno.com.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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