Owning Democracy

All around me, I see the new narrative:

Democracy itself is at risk if we don’t stop the Republicans!!

We are supposed to believe that the Democrats are the only party that can be trusted with the reins of power, that only they can fulfill the promise of representative government, and that their counterparts across the aisle are fascistic thugs who will ignore the will of the people if elected.

Here, I am reminded of a cheesy, in the uniquely cheesy way of the early 80s, movie called Megaforce. Its poster had, emblazoned across the top, three monosyllables:

If you want to know true motives, watch what people do, rather than listening to what they say.

To wit:

Consider the dreary saga of voting in New York State.

Nine years ago, New York’s voters, via referendum, amended the state Constitution to prohibit gerrymandering. Will of the people, about as close to direct democracy as you can ask for in America. No matter, the Democrats with their stranglehold on state politics attempted an audacious gerrymander that would have flipped four GOP Congressional seats blue. It backfired, spectacularly, with the courts deeming the move unconstitutional, appointing an independent map-drawer, and the GOP gaining four seats after the dust settled.

Undaunted, the Dems have been hard at work packing the judiciary so that their next attempt at flouting the will of the voters could sneak past the courts. On top of that, they just passed a law allowing anyone to vote by mail. Problem is, the state Constitution requires in-person voting, excepting only those who are away or have another legitimate (and codified) justification. Moreso, a referendum (again, direct democracy) put forth to allow universal vote-by-mail was voted down two years ago. Despite both the supreme law of the state and the expressed will of the people, Governor Hochul and the Democrats in Albany said “this is what we want, this is what’s going to be.”

This is just a microcosm of a bigger picture. Electoral integrity appears to be anathema to the Left, and they routinely couch such things as voter ID proposals as unfair to disadvantaged populations. That is to imply, racist. While there are legit concerns about some people being disenfranchised by a voter ID requirement, those concerns could be alleviated with trivial ease by doing what the government, and especially the Democrats, loves most: spending money. As in, fund a program to ensure that anyone who wants a voting-sufficient ID and doesn’t already have a driver’s license or passport or state-issued non-driver ID can get one, no charge. The libertarian in me bristles at the zillion things I am required to present identification for, but I put voting way down on that list. That the Left rejects voter ID is, again, a “deeds not words” telltale. That it makes things like ballot harvesting a lot easier is a feature, not a bug, of course.

“Democracy” is being claimed, exclusively, by the eponymous party. That they’re doing all they can to make sure elections come out in their favor reminds me of the various one-party nations that call themselves “Democratic”(Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the German Democratic Republic, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic).

What are we to make of the message that, if someone other than a Party endorsed candidate wins an election, democracy itself has been harmed?

Yes, the question is rhetorical.

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A quick note on gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is itself an expression of the will of the people. Voters install the politicians who draw the districts, and while we can voice rage at deeply contorted districts that benefit “the other team,” the rage I see is far more muted when those distortions favor the home team. But, just as gerrymandering can be traced to the voters, referendums that prohibit it share the same provenance, and it is when politicians attempt to subvert the will of the people by ignoring, as in New York’s case, voter-specified restrictions that we find the true threat to democracy.