Do Democrats Hate Democracy?

The most basic rule of democracy is that everyone must accept the results of legitimate elections. Accepting election results is the sine qua non of democracy. It is accepting election results that makes peaceful transitions of office possible, and that avoids civil wars.

There is no clearer example of the contempt that the Democrat Party has for democracy than its rejection of the 2016 presidential election results. From even before the election, Democrats were plotting to overthrow, through impeachment, the duly-elected president of the United States. What followed were multiple impeachment initiatives on the part of the Democrat Party, each in search of a justification. So American voters were treated to the Russia hoax, the obstruction hoax, the emoluments hoax, the Ukraine hoax, and most recently the unconstitutional absurdities of “abuse of power” and “contempt of Congress,” all aimed at nullifying the 2016 election.

But there are endless examples of Democrat Party violations of democratic norms. The setting aside of Democrat primary voters in favor of superdelegates appointed by the party establishment allows the Party to override the will of Democrat voters, as happened in 2016 when the party establishment put its thumb on the scale in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. In the 2020 primaries, the Democrat National Committee has changed the rules of debate participation to smooth the way for billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who is seen, in contrast to socialist Bernie Sanders, as a moderate.

For his part, Bernie Sanders is not a member of the Democrat Party, but a Democratic Socialist. Unfortunately for Sanders, the fate of democracy under socialism is well known. If you are not executed for belonging to the wrong economic class or expressing a politically incorrect opinion, as happened in the U.S.S.R., the People’s Republic of China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Castro’s Cuba, and Venezuela, you may be allowed to vote for the candidate nominated by the Socialist or Communist Party. One-party “democracy” is a beautiful thing — if you are a socialist.

The Democrat Party’s rejection of democracy is also seen in its violation of rules of fairness and norms of due process. The impeachment investigation run by the House Democrats ran roughshod over the rights of their Republican colleagues, who had the right under House rules to call witnesses, interrogate witnesses, see the transcripts of all witnesses, and have time to present their case. The president also should have been allowed to have his lawyers present to question witnesses and defend the president. None of this happened in the fixed kangaroo court that was the Democrat House investigation, which was completely one-sided. This violation of procedure not only harmed the president and the Republican minority of the House but also the voters who elected the president and the Republican members of the House. The Democrats trampled over their interests.

Not satisfied with trying to overturn the 2016 presidential election, the Democrat Party, led by Adam Schiff, is trying to block the 2020 election. “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won,” he said. Schiff judges “fairly won” not on the basis of the procedures used, but on the outcome. For Schiff, the re-election of Trump would be sufficient proof of an illegitimate election.

At base, the problem is that the Democrat Party does not trust the demos, the voters. On the contrary, the Democrat Party believes that for too many American voters are “deplorables,” bigots, violators of all that is politically correct and dear to the hearts of the woke Democrats. If the “deplorable” Americans are allowed to vote, they might — they undoubtedly would — vote for the wrong candidate; in this case, they might re-elect Donald Trump, which, as far as Democrats are concerned, would be illegitimate. Democrats have now made explicit their despotic tendencies and their desire for power above all else. While they constantly invoke the Constitution, saying that they are acting to protect it, in fact, they are shredding it. The Democrat Party is a threat to American democracy.