Democrats and Democracy

At the heart of much politicking is saying the same thing over and over again. Sometimes, it's a stump speech, and repetition is to be expected. Politicians, of course, travel their district or state or nation in order to share their ideas and plans with voters, so it's natural that a speech be repeated. Just as stand up comics build a "solid seven minutes" via repetition and fine-tuning, political candidates combine a basket of ideas or talking points into a carefully crafted package that, they hope, wins voters over.

Sometimes, it's a phrase. Slogans like "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and "Make America great again" serve as both placeholders for broader ideas and identifiers of candidates and their supporters.

Sometimes, it's a word.

The word I hear spoken a lot by supporters of the Left is "Democracy."

As in, they are the advocates for and defenders of "democracy." As in, if Trump gets elected, democracy itself is at risk.

There is a sinister problem, however, with this often histrionic argument, one that goes beyond the fact that America is a Constitutional republic, not a democracy.

Democracy, whether it be direct or by proxy (we elect people to vote in our stead) is majority rule. Majority rule doesn't protect the minority. Majority rule can impose whatever the will and whim of the moment on individuals and on society as a whole.

Majority rule can be incredibly unfair and unjust.

Majority rule created Jim Crow in the postbellum South, as the Union withdrew and Southern states and cities took away the rights of newly-freed blacks.

Majority rule is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.

Majority rule is mob rule.

Our system of government, in aspiration if not always in execution, is designed to stand against this sort of majority rule. The primacy of individual (and by extension, property) rights, equal treatment under the law, limited government, separation of powers, federalism, and an independent judiciary are not aspects of "democracy," but they are vital to a free and prosperous society.

Today's Democrats would attack all these, if they manage to accrue enough power, and Kamala Harris has made that abundantly clear.

• Criminal justice "reforms" that fail to prosecute people who have violated others' individual and property rights.

• How you are treated by the government would depend a whole lot on your "identities," with equality thrown out the window in favor of the Trojan horse for coercive favoritism that has been dubbed "equity."

• An unconstrained government that does whatever 218 House Representatives, 51 Senators, and a President want to do.

• A Presidency that can, via executive order, do whatever it can't get the Legislature to authorize.

• A Court that is subordinate to, rather than co-equal with, the other branches of government.

All this reeks of a contempt for the Republic and for the limits on power that are at the nation's heart.

The Presidential oath of office reads:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The US Congress oath of office reads:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

I look across the Left, and I see people who have taken this oath but who are wholly dedicated to subverting it.

Some apologetics will insist that, no, they don’t mean “democracy” when they say “democracy” and that they really do respect the Constitution.

Please.

The last people who should be given unlimited power are the people who most want it, yet here we are, on the cusp of voters giving it all away.