Dems’ Unbridled Pursuit of Power Can’t Be Airbrushed Away

The Democrats’ disquieting quest for power at the cost of our democratic principles cannot credibly be denied or rebutted by inapt whataboutisms.

Democrats and the sources of their present power

During the 40 years from John Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, four Republicans served a total of 22 years as president and a like number of Democrats served for 18 years. Democrats dominated other elective offices, however, controlling the Senate for 28 years, the House for 34 years, and adjusting for time in office, governorships by 57% to 43%, and state legislatures by 73% to 27%.

Then, the pendulum swung. For the last 25 years, Republicans (13 years) and Democrats (12 years) each elected two presidents, and Republicans gained control of the Senate for 13 years, the House for 17 years, governorships, 55% to 45%, and state legislatures, 59% to 41%.

Yet, despite an edge in winning elections and appointing 60% of Supreme Court justices confirmed over the last 65 years, since the 1960s conservatives have been on the losing end of nearly every social and cultural battle and most policy disputes. Donald Trump’s effort to restore American traditions is being resisted with trench warfare, including lawless judges, seditious elected officials, violent demonstrators, and assassination.

Most conservatives would rather leave things and people alone. By contrast, progressives organize, demonstrate, destroy property, and assault opponents. With great success, they also litigate and have patiently and strategically seized control of the American institutions that exercise real power. Presidents come and go, but careers in the administrative state, judiciary, education, and media can last 50 years.

How Democrats did it, especially in higher education, the judiciary, and media

Liberals generally, and progressives particularly, have devoted 75 years to securing control of education, federal and state bureaucracies, corporate boards, tech companies, entertainment, and media. They triangulated their efforts, consolidating control of institutions that fund, inform, regulate, accredit, authorize, and monitor each other.

Liberal control of education and media has been especially effective. Progressive educators indoctrinate students. Then, editors and correspondents, schooled in left-leaning universities and often brought up in liberal households, select the subjects they will cover, the headlines and ledes that frame their content, and the lies of commission and omission that cover up and mislead. According to Pew Research, trust in the media has so eroded that 94% of U.S. adults now believe they have to verify the news.

The progressive takeover was bolstered by an activist Supreme Court that began with Earl Warren’s ascension to chief justice in 1953. The court advanced liberal dogma and the powers of the left-leaning administrative state in the guise of constitutional analysis, going so far as to hallucinate “penumbras” that supported the left’s goals.

Trump’s first-term Supreme Court appointees stopped Democrats from taking him off the ballot and prosecuting him, and began to repair the damage done by 70 years of judicial activism. Fighting back, progressive federal judges continue to exceed their authority to bar policies that offend them, resulting in a rising tide of stays and reversals. Even liberal justices have rebuked the illegitimate arrogation of power by activist judges who refuse to implement the court’s decisions.

The goals of the progressive wing

Progressives have used their power to advance DEI, open borders, and transgender, green, and antisemitic agendas; to defund police departments and decarcerate offenders; to suppress parental rights and religion (other than Islam); and to use the Pentagon as a social experiment. When conservatives respond, progressive leaders and the media hypocritically claim they are ignoring “well-established” norms – though most of these alleged norms are, in fact, radical aberrations that have been around for just a few years.

Many Republicans and Democrats have similar goals. But not progressives, whose leaders and organizations often are funded by malign foreign powers, and who endorse socialism, Marxist ideology, and violence. While both parties seek votes, progressives seek power, and they are not reluctant to eviscerate norms to obtain and keep it.

As the Supreme Court swung to the right, progressives branded it illegitimate. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer threatened violence against Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, and the Biden administration disregarded federal law to allow leftists to march on conservative justices’ homes, including one trans protestor who intended to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.

When voters moved to the right, Democrats gerrymandered Illinois, Maryland, and New York. For once, Republicans responded in kind, facing withering attacks from the media for doing so.

Importing extra voters

Political gerrymanders are legal. What the Biden administration did was not. It imported from 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants, and relocated them to subvert the next decennial reapportionment. To prevent the Trump administration from undoing this betrayal of American sovereignty, elected Democrats have unlawfully declared sanctuary status and incited violence against ICE and the police.

Obama launched the Russia hoax and lawfare, later ramped up by the Biden administration to imprison and bankrupt Trump and his family. It is karma that Trump is retaliating, though unlike Democrats, he isn’t trying to take out the other party’s presidential candidates.

Democratic leaders proclaim their intention to demolish the foundation of American democracy in order to further policies that most voters oppose. They promise to achieve permanent control of all branches of government. That’s what communists and fascists did in the last century.

To control the judiciary, they promise to change the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction and pack it with progressive judges who can outvote the conservative majority.

To control Congress and the presidency, they are using illegal immigrants to gain House seats and electoral votes in the next decennial census, and facilitating election fraud with unrestricted private ballot collection (vote harvesting) and universal mail-in ballots, while opposing voter ID, contrary to the views of 83% of Americans, including 71% of Democrats and 76% of the black voters they claim to be protecting. In recent months, at least seven states have acknowledged hundreds of noncitizens registered to vote.

Where the rubber meets the road

To complete their takeover, they also intend to admit Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as states to gain four Democratic senators and several Democratic representatives, and eliminate the filibuster to suppress any remaining dissent in the Senate.

Graham Platner embodies traits that Democrats claim to despise: Nazi iconography, abuse of women, slurs against the disabled, and insincerity. With pristine situational ethics, they nominated him to defeat Susan Collins, a moderate Republican.

On Real America’s “Get Real,” RealClear publisher David DesRosiers seeks common ground across the political spectrum. During a recent discussion, I described the Democrats’ thirst for power. One of the liberal panelists, an articulate and usually cogent regular, rejected my concerns by analogizing Republicans who express dismay about court decisions or election results to progressives who vow to destroy the essentials of our democracy.

Americans will have to decide whether their distaste for Donald Trump justifies Soviet-style permanent single-party rule that could be implemented only after he leaves office. I am not sanguine about their answer.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.