Ever since the 2016 campaign, Democrats have warned that candidate and then President Trump would destroy the nation’s norms of governance. He was threatening to loosen libel laws, casting aspersions on the free press, and creating doubts about the legitimacy of fair American elections. (Note that this was before that last one became a requirement for losing Democratic candidates.)
After Trump’s election, Democrats warned — not always incorrectly — that he is straining constitutional bonds, attempting to weaken checks and balances against his own presidential power.
Yet for all Trump’s sins, it is the Democrats who are now threatening to abuse power on a much grander scale than anything Trump has tried or even threatened.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, as well as Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., all Democrats running for president in 2020, are now openly talking about packing the Supreme Court. O’Rourke wants to install as many as six additional justices. This demonstrates just how enraged Democrats are at having lost their decades-old stranglehold on the federal judiciary. In their fury they have reached the point where they discuss abusing power in a way the nation has not seen since it backfired in the 1930s.
[Eric Holder: Democrats should add seats to Supreme Court]
It is disheartening to see leading Democratic politicians so brazenly discuss undermining the independence of the judiciary in this manner, and all because they don’t like judicial outcomes and can’t stand losing.
Conservatives lived for decades under courts that didn’t do what they wanted. Somehow they managed to resist this tyrannical impulse to change the rules whenever they lost.
What Harris, Gillibrand, and Warren are now contemplating is worse by an order of magnitude than anything Trump has ever said, done, or even threatened. Democrats cannot pretend to be on any moral or procedural high ground when they act like Third World dictators seeking permanent power.
The Democrats’ threat to the courts is bad enough, but they are also threatening to abolish the Electoral College and eliminate the Senate filibuster. In both cases, this is because they see an avenue to enhanced and permanent power. The Senate, with its rules of unlimited debate, has long served as the “saucer” for cooling the House’s excessive populist impulses. It has saved from repeal many of the left-leaning policies that Democrats enacted in the 20th century.
The Electoral College, meanwhile, prevents one or two states from dominating the nation’s politics. It guarantees that each state’s say in the election is proportional to its population, and that one cannot win the presidency simply by running up the score by harvesting ballots in California.
Along with the Supreme Court, these institutions form the thicket of laws that the Founders carefully planted across the republic to prevent majoritarian tyranny and the accumulation of power. For decades, these checks have provided stability in the nation’s laws. In modern times, they have forestalled political violence and revolution, thanks in large part to the to cool-headed politicians who have respected them … until now.
The Left believes it is on the rise in America, and its adherents are incredibly cocky right now about their ability to gain and then abuse power in coming elections. They should beware. So should the voters.
Having failed to lock in lasting change or power during the Obama era, Democrats now hope to create a situation where the bare 51 percent majority they think they can win in the next election is enough to give them a license for sweeping changes that will make this nation’s system of government unrecognizable.
Democrats once tried to present themselves as defenders of national norms. If there are any Democrats left who still believe in that stuff, we suggest they come forward now and try to save their party from the power-hungry crazies who are taking it over.
