Perhaps Trump “Threatens Democracy”, But The Modern Left Does Also

Two Things Can Be True, at least from my perspective:

Trump could be a seen as a “threat to democracy”
The Leftist wing of the Democratic party could be a threat to democracy

First – let me jump on my soapbox. The US is not really a democracy, it is a republic. Our Founders were terrified (rightfully so) of pure democracy. And that distinction is incredibly important for good governance. But for this column, it is more of a distraction.

Therefore I will use I what I believe is the common man’s meaning of “democracy” in the US

We should vote for our president, not have dictators, vote for people who make our laws, and that the Constitution sets up rules and some basic rights that cannot be taken away.

Trump goes first (just ask him).

Trump’s Possible Threat To Democracy

I cannot count the number of my left leaning friends who have said or written to me that Trump is “a threat to democracy”. It is stated as casually correct as one would say the “sky is blue”. What threats do they see? I went down a Google doom-scrolling rathole for 30 minutes and I found three common themes amid a torrent of fear.

Trump Will Be a “Dictator”

Everyone knows Trump really only listens to himself, and is used to being an autocrat in the business world. The fear is that in a second term without having to face the voters again, he would try to rule purely by executive fiat.

I concede that is a valid concern.

The sad fact is that the tendency of presidents to rule by executive fiat has been on an ever increasing path since FDR, and it is independent of party. The COVID pandemic then poured gasoline on the executive branch fire in both DC and the statehouse. I’ll expound more on this “dictator” angle in the later section on the Left.

I will note however that Trump’s first term did not show him any worse on this measure than his contemporaries. In particular, his high profile orders on immigration were mostly stayed by the courts. He did not ignore those rulings. Also, Trump’s rhetoric is way worse than his bite. He says all kinds of outrageous things, but follows through on very few of them. This was manifestly the case in his first term. Thus we should take his dictator bluster, as un-American as it is, with a large Trumpian discount.

Trump Will Not Leave Office / Ignore Election Results

Trump still is not admitting a 2020 loss – I will write more on that later this fall. He acts in many ways like he is entitled to the presidency. People can envision him trying to take office nefariously after a loss this year, or not wanting to leave in 2028.

Again, I cannot write this concern off 100% out of hand. I get where people would fear this, especially after the embarrassing and ugly spectacle on January 6, 2021.

However, I think from a practical perspective this is all but impossible for several reasons.

One incredible strength of the USA that almost all other countries lack is our federal system. The states matter and have their own power. State governors could team together to make a very formidable counter, and they have the National Guard units at their disposal in a nightmare scenario.
The people still believe in the courts, though perhaps not as much as in decades past. The Supreme Court, despite strong ideological differences, would not sanctify Trump staying in office or “showing up” after not being certified a winner. Those jurists respect the Constitution too much to not be 9-0 in my opinion.
The people would be 85-15 at a minimum against it. The hardest core Trump supporters might convince themselves, but the general GOP voter will not.
The career military leaders have sworn oaths to the Constitution. Lately their ranks have been filled with an emphasis on Politically Correct thinking. These are hardly Trump supporters, and almost every coup requires the military.
Trump wants more to “win” and be “loved” more than to actually “be the President”.

Thus I think this fear is vastly overblown. However I concede if he took us down this path it would be highly destabilizing and a national embarrassment.

Trump Will Weaponize the Government Against Enemies

He certainly blusters that he will do so. Will the career bureaucrats go along with this? The courts?

Regardless, see below that this game is one the Left is already playing.

The Left’s Threat To Democracy

Here are my counters to the one-sided fear of Trump.

Being A “Dictator”

Obama was a constitutional scholar. He originally said he didn’t have the authority to implement the DREAM act on immigration. He eventually did it via executive order.

Biden tried to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer money with student loan forgiveness without Congressional authorization, citing a tiny loophole in a decades-old bill. The Constitution could not be more clear about where spending comes from – Congress. This order was struck down by the courts. So he… tried again.

The three unelected Democratic members of the 5-member FTC voted to ban non-compete agreements. This is a very complicated issue that I debated multiple times in the Georgia Legislature. This was an astonishing move to do things by “fiat” and not with a Democratic process. The courts have enjoined it, citing likely lack of statutory power.

Executive orders under Biden are more or less banning carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, though CO2 is not covered in law and as is a naturally occurring gas in the atmosphere. Again – the global warming issue is complicated as I discussed here, but do we want to effectively ban coal plants without a vote of any kind?

Delegitimizing the Courts, Especially SCOTUS

It is no secret that the Democrats hate the sitting Supreme Court majority and many recent rulings, the overturning of Roe v. Wade in particular. Not getting their way, they are denouncing the legitimacy of the court, threatening to pack it, and wanting to “reform” it. Make no mistake, none of this is about ethics – it is about losing. If you replaced 2 justices with liberals, don’t have those rulings, and everything else was the same, the Left would be heralding the SCOTUS as awesome.

Even more terrifying are the head nods to violence against sitting justices. Senate Majority Leader Schumer said in 2020 that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch have “released the whirlwind” and will “pay the price”. In 2022 a crazy person tried to assassinate the justice. People say Trump’s rhetoric incites action. Why does Chuck get a pass? A whole litany of other threats and intimidation can be found here.

Since I wrote this first draft, there has been a second attempt on Trump’s life. I would argue the almost panic-like “threat to Democracy” language from the Democrats has emboldened these wackos. But isn’t killing presidential candidates a threat to democracy?

When to permit abortion is a very controversial and complicated issue. Ironically, the overturn of Roe v Wade now returns the issue to….. drum roll please…… Democracy! You know, like people voting in referenda, or their elected representatives voting on laws. For that, you get many on the Left dangerously undermining one of the 3 branches in our government. This is not theoretical about something someone (Trump) might do. It has happened.

Questioning Elections

I wrote here how Stacey Abrams recklessly questioned the outcome of her election. I know this next link is from the RNC, but it is a 3 minute video of election denials from the Democrats over the last 25 years. I’ll concede 2000 was a hanging chad mess, so you can skip the first minute. But the others…. Trump may have bigly raised the ante here, but he wasn’t first to the party.

Restricting Free Speech

This is worth its own column and I will get there at some later date. But most people would agree that free speech is a fundamental premise of our Democracy. Yes it is not the US, but abroad but Leftists in the UK are jailing people for social media posts, and Canada is inching closer to it. The trend here is also definitely very strongly in the direction of reducing our free speech rights. Our government has intimidated social media companies to censor “misinformation”. However, some of the most high profile censored “misinformation” turned out to be correct! This incldued the Hunter Biden’s laptop and the likely true lab origin theory of COVID. There are plenty of GOP offenders here as well, but the Left is in the driver’s seat.

Weaponizing Government

Again – this is a terrible trend in general on both sides. Impeachments galore, investigative committee bonanza, etc. I would argue the Left has been the worst offender. The over the top Trump prosecutions are just the latest.

The Obama administration used the IRS to target non-profits who may have engaged illegally in political work. However, it was mostly aimed at conservative groups. This led to a settlement against the IRS.

There is serious evidence that in 2016 the FBI, Justice Department, and others in the federal government used their power to work against at the time candidate Trump. The most serious was the “Russian influence” FBI angle, where a special counsel found was politically motivated.

OK I’m Tired, Let Us Finish

The bottom line is simple. There are threats to democracy, and specifically our Constitution, from many angles. One can Google and spin to their heart’s content to make their case. Recently some of the most dramatic are from the hardest core Trump supporters and Donald’s mouth. But I sincerely believe the lion’s share of real threats are from the leaders of the Left, many of which value getting their desired societal goals and power more than the Constitution, or frankly “Democracy”. Conservatives, as the name implies, are more likely to respect the way things have been.

Like in so many areas, Trump is such a verbal volcano that his erupting magma burns up most of the air on this subject. But if you look closer to what has actually happened as I did above….. where is the bigger threat?

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