Few things about modern politics anger me more than the penchant for both sides to claim the world is ending if the other side wins. If Biden/Trump wins, it will be the “end of democracy” or “America will be finished.”
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Grow up and get over it. America will still be here four years from now, as will democracy. As much as politicians try to destroy her, America has withstood a lot more than what modern politicians are throwing at her. Her institutions are rickety but still standing. As corrupt, venal, and crooked as our politicians are, it’s nothing that a couple of cleansing elections and a few good men and women leading us can’t fix.
If you believe in America, if you believe that human beings are capable of governing themselves, you must believe that the situation can be righted.
How shallow is it to believe that America will be gone unless my candidate wins? It bespeaks a breathtaking ignorance of American history and a troubling lack of faith in the American system of government.
The radical left, ever wanting to ape the tactics of past “revolutionaries,” recall with fondness “The Resistance” to Donald Trump in 2016. It was a loosely organized bunch of hysterical left-wingers who couldn’t accept Donald Trump as president. They talked bravely of “The Resistance” as if they were French Maquis planning in secret and hiding in the woods lest the Nazis…er, Trump stormtroopers…find them.
It sounds silly and it was. They claimed eight years ago that Trump was going to destroy democracy and set up some kind of dictatorship. And yet here we are, eight years later, safe and sound.
“The Resistance” takes credit for stopping Trump, of course. It’s like the weatherman who takes credit for a sunny day after predicting rain. And now, they’re back.
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A sprawling network of Democratic officials, progressive activists, watchdog groups and ex-Republicans has been taking extraordinary steps to prepare for a potential second Trump presidency, drawn together by the fear that Mr. Trump’s return to power would pose a grave threat not just to their agenda but to American democracy itself.
I know they’re serious. And obviously, they mean well. But goodness, gracious, great balls of fire where is this coming from? What planet are these jamokes living on?
“Trump has made clear that he’ll disregard the law and test the limits of our system,” said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Democracy Center. “What we’re staring down is extremely dark.”
Biden’s bid to unilaterally and in direct contravention of the Supreme Court end student loan debt is beyond the “limits of our system.” Ditto for his immigration gambits. Nobody ever says we’re staring down a “dark” tunnel if we re-elect Biden.
Democrats, the Supreme Court, Republicans who might not like Trump trying to end democracy, and other democratic institutions think Trump is going to do… what? Try an extra-constitutional coup? Is Trump going to throw them all in jail like Hitler and Stalin did to seize power?
It’s idiotic on its face.
Most Democrats know full well that Trump can’t “destroy democracy” unless he pulls a “Reichstag Fire” and suspends the Constitution. Even then, are all Republicans really going to march lemming-like over a cliff if Trump tells them to jump?
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But the early timing, volume and scale of the planning underway to push back against a potential second Trump administration are without precedent. The loose-knit coalition is determined not to be caught flat-footed, as many were after his unexpected victory in 2016.
If Mr. Trump returns to power, he is openly planning to impose radical changes — many with authoritarian overtones. Those plans include using the Justice Department to take revenge on his adversaries, sending federal troops into Democratic cities, carrying out mass deportations, building huge camps to hold immigrant detainees, making it easier to fire civil servants and replace them with loyalists and expanding and centralizing executive power.
Most of those plans require congressional authorization. “Sending federal troops into Democratic cities” during riots will only happen if the governor of that state requests assistance. And if you believe that the Justice Department is going to prosecute the J-6 Committee, I’ve got a bridge over the Chicago River that just came on the market I’d like to sell you.
Hysterical madness.
Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, says: “[T]he planning for how to resist such an agenda should not be seen as an ordinary policy dispute but as an effort to defend fundamental aspects of American self-government ‘from an aspiring autocrat.'”
“He is no normal candidate, this is no normal election, and these are no normal preparations for merely coming out on the wrong side of a national referendum on policy choices,” Mr. Bassin continued.
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He is no “normal candidate” because the radical left has made Trump into “baba yaga” or the boogeyman. This calls to mind the famous quotation from General Ulysses Grant in the Wilderness Campaign. Grant’s subordinates were wringing their hands about “Bobby Lee” and his ability to seemingly appear where you least expected him.
An exasperated Grant, whittling away on a stick of wood, told them, “I am heartily tired of hearing what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land on our rear and on both our flanks at the same time.”
Trump has been generating that kind of hysteria since he started running for president. And “The Resistance” is falling for it every single time.