Behind the Threats to "Our Democracy™"

[Valin]

Political Questions

How can you tell that something is "undemocratic"? When it slows down Democrats.
Linda Denno
Oct 17, 2024

Much is being made in the current national discourse about threats to Our Democracy™.  These supposed threats include “mis- and disinformation,” voter ID laws, and even constitutionally mandated institutions such as the electoral college, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Supreme Court.  The latter three examples were, of course, designed specifically to be undemocratic: indeed, that is a chief virtue of those constitutional institutions.  It also is not sufficient in defending Our Democracy™ to rail against our “undemocratic” institutions; rather, the left now characterizes even those instances where democracy works as intended as undemocratic. 

An especially droll example was the left’s reaction to Liz Cheney’s loss in the 2022 Wyoming Republican primary by one of the largest margins in congressional primary history.  Cheney took only 27% of the vote, despite outspending her opponent Harriet Hageman several times over.  But leftist commentators were clutching their pearls: Cheney’s resounding primary defeat in what was widely accounted as a free and fair election was nevertheless considered profoundly undemocratic, as Cheney had been the most prominent Republican critic of Donald Trump in the House of Representatives.  Cheney, the daughter of the man who was once public enemy number one to the left, became overnight the regime media darling because of her opposition to Trump: first voting for his impeachment and then helping to lead a “bipartisan” special committee that recommended criminal charges against the former president.  As a writer at Vox claimed, “Liz Cheney’s downfall shows the GOP threat to democracy is getting worse.”

How is it possible to make the preposterous claim that a well-known and well-funded congressional incumbent, who lost a primary election by an almost 40% spread to her challenger, is a blow to democracy?  Democracy by definition means, above all, rule by the majority, and the majority spoke—and spoke clearly—in Wyoming.  The answer, of course, is anything that might endanger a Democrat or progressive victory is a threat to Our Democracy™.  The media narrative was that Cheney’s primary defeat happened because Republican voters were unhappy with Cheney, not because Cheney had betrayed their interests but because they had been brainwashed by the reviled Donald Trump.  It was as if St. George had been stricken down by the very townspeople he was trying to save before he could slay the evil dragon.

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Trump is not considered by the left to be a threat to Our Democracy™  because he questioned his defeat against the senile, corrupt, basement-dwelling child sniffer.  Rather, the threat Trump poses is much more serious, indeed existential, from the perspective of our ruling elites.  Trump’s ultimate offense is his refusal to bend to the current power structure: a structure characterized by the benign authoritarianism of the ruling class; by the elites who claimed to have the people’s best interest in mind while they opened our borders, welcomed millions of illegals, shipped our working class jobs overseas, and turned our cities into third world hellholes; and by a uniparty often more interested in preserving the prerogatives of power than of truly representing the interests of their constituents or the good of the nation. Although Trump was certainly not uniformly successful in challenging these powerful interests during his first term as president, the current power structure has every reason to believe that Trump has learned something from his mistakes.  He is already surrounding himself with better, smarter, more dedicated people who, like Trump, do not fit the establishment Republican mold and who are not invested in the go-along-to-get-along mentality of the Washington, D.C. swamp.  He has made an excellent choice in J.D. Vance, a choice that may carry the legacy of “MAGA” far into the future. 

The left has every right to be worried: Our Democracy™ may indeed be in peril, but the beginning of the restoration of our constitutional republic committed to the rule of law and government by the people, for the people, and of the people might well be at hand.