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Democracy
Democrats Against Democracy
More evidence that when Democrats talk about Our Democracy™️ they don’t mean democracy. They mean not having to deal with those pesky opponents that sometimes, God forbid, win elections. Thus, Rasmussen finds that 78% of Democrats approve of “state officials removing Trump’s name from the ballot.” Well, that’s one way to make it easy to elect Democrats. In a parallel finding, 77% of Democrats say that the January 6 protest »
Our Democracy™️
We live in a corrupt environment in which, increasingly, words are used to signify the opposite of their actual meaning. Thus, Democrats often use the word “democracy” to mean its precise opposite. This is a fine example: Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has denounced the Supreme Court as "not friendly to democracy" after the cold reception to Colorado's effort to block Trump from the ballot. https://t.co/wFgWfhAmtd That now »
Blast from the Past: Civil War Squared
With the Civil War back in the news—both the first one in 1861 (one of the items that will be a major focus of this week’s Three Whisky Happy Hour podcast coming Saturday morning) and the prospective one today because of Trump’s supposed “Threat to DemocracyTM” (let’s start calling it Civil War 2, or Civil War2), it seems to me worth re-upping the column I published in the New York Post »
Civic Education, at the Highest Level
Some readers may recall my earlier announcement that next semester (starting in January) I’ll be filling the very large shoes of Prof. Ted McAllister at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy. (Ted sadly passed away after a long illness last winter.) I gave a talk to the incoming class of graduate students back in August, which I turned into a podcast here (in case you were living in a cave »
Democrats Hate Democracy
Earlier today, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. released this indictment of the Democratic National Committee. Why, he asks, is the Democratic Party opposed to democracy? Why is it rigging the primary process? I am not certain whether what he says about the DNC’s machinations is correct, nor am I sure what he considers to be real democracy. (For example, it has never been true that the candidate who gets the most »
Postscript on the National Vote Compact
John wrote here Sunday about the “National Vote Compact” (NVC), the proposal of the goo-goo (“good government”) reformers to get around the electoral college by having a majority of states agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. I agree with John that it is a loopy idea, though I’d love the spectacle of California someday having to cast its electoral votes for a »
The Dirty 51 revisited
Miranda Devine’s New York Post column revisits the 51 intelligence officers whose letter bore all the earmarks of a dirty political intelligence operation taking advantage of their former offices. Let us not forget that Politico acted the media arm of the operation. Devine’s column — “It’s been two years since 51 intelligence agents interfered with an election — they still won’t apologize” — confines itself to the Dirty 51. Having »
What was once inflation reduction…
You can’t help but notice that the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act has been reborn in the press as a health care and climate bill. Performing its usual public relations work for Minnesota’s DFL, the Star Tribune celebrates the faceless Senator Tina Smith. Washington correspondent Hunter Woodall leads his story on the bill this way: After a series of setbacks over the last year, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith’s work on »
Trump’s disturbing claim that Pence could “overturn the election”
This past weekend, Donald Trump claimed that Mike Pence, as vice president, had the power to change the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump said: “Unfortunately, [Pence] didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election.” This claim is wrong and disturbing. It’s wrong because, as discussed below, once the states submit their slates of electors in compliance with state law and with no alternative slate authorized by an »
The meaning of January 6 and what it doesn’t mean
Of the articles I read yesterday and today about the events of January 6, 2021, I found two that are most closely aligned with my views. The first is a Wall Street Journal editorial called “Democracy isn’t dying.” Among the points it makes are these: On all the available evidence Jan. 6 was not an “insurrection,” in any meaningful sense of that word. It was not an attempted coup. The »
E.J. Dionne’s bad advice to Democrats
E.J. Dionne advises Democrats on how they can avoid a “thumpin'” in this year’s congressional elections. Notice that Dionne isn’t offering a prescription for retaining a majority in the House. He’s merely talking about how not to “get crushed.” Dionne thereby exhibits realism. However, the same cannot be said of his strategy for escaping a shellacking. Dionne says the Democrats’ best hope is to make the 2022 election about democracy. »
Relevant classic texts (3)
I just finished reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America for the first time. I read it over the past two years or so in weekly lunch meetings with my friend Bruce Sanborn. Carleton College’s Professor Larry Cooper, also a friend, served as our preceptor. We used the terrific edition translated, edited, and introduced by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop that is published by the University of Chicago Press. Like »
Notes on the Fifth District race
Late Thursday one of Tucker Carlson’s producers invited me to come on the show this past Friday night to talk about Ilhan Omar’s campaign spending in the impending primary election. The invitation gave me all day Friday to study up. Having caught up with much of the recent news on the primary race, I want to offer a few notes on a race that merits national interest. Minnesota’s Fifth District »
Is Disunion In Our Future?
Until the last few months, the idea of disunion as anything but a historical relic had barely occurred to me. But lately, I have begun to wonder. Is there any basis on which we can share governance of America with people who hate our country and our traditions, institutions, culture and freedoms? Why, exactly, should we want to do so? Is there any set of shared assumptions and values that »
The Washington Post Comes Clean
This is straight out of InstaPundit, but it’s too good not to pass on. For a moment, the mask drops and WaPo tells the truth about the Left’s agenda: Satire dead @kenklippenstein: One of the more mask off headlines I’ve seen in awhile pic.twitter.com/Ci9qp9ZFwq” — John Cusack (@johncusack) February 19, 2020 What the Washington Post means by “democracy” is not what you and I mean. Keep this in mind next »
Tom Perez looks back
Just before the Democratic meltdown in Iowa last night, the Democratic Party tweeted out Chairman Tom Perez’s reflections on the reforms that have been instituted under his leadership. If only Perez had waited a few hours, he could have elaborated on the Iowa fiasco. Quotable quote: “Some of our major changes this year have to do with how states administer their caucuses — and they are all geared towards making »