It seems there are a lot of threats to democracy these days. Barely an hour goes by without some news outlet, think-tank, talking head or politician warning us about the latest threat to democracy, and we’re told the biggest is Donald Trump. A recent item in USA Today wrote of widespread concern that “Donald Trump's return to the White House could spell the end of American democracy.” But having Donald Trump on your Threat to Democracy Bingo Card is a gimme.
People who live in rural areas are a threat to democracy because they think immigrants should come to America legally rather than illegally. People who attend church are also a threat to democracy, as are people who believe that boys should use the boy’s locker room, Christian-Zionists, the Heritage Foundation, and military veterans. Who knew?
The tortured logic used to support these preposterous theories ignores the very real short-circuiting of democracy that’s happening right now among establishment Democrats and their party apparatus. They are denying the election results of the 2024 Democrat primary season and seeking to depose the presidential nominee chosen in that process.
President Joe Biden won his party’s primary sweepstakes going away. It’s normal to challenge the results of a close election but Biden won 3,904 convention delegates. Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips won five and a person named Jason Palmer won three. Second place went to ‘Uncommitted’ with 37 delegates.
There is no question that Joe Biden is the democratically elected presidential nominee of his party, and overwhelmingly so. Yet many of Biden’s fellow Democrats are denying this exercise in democracy and trying to remove him from his rightful position. They are not merely threatening the democracy of the primary system, they are actively destroying it, in real time, right before our eyes.
If this is how a political party separates its own partisans from democracy, just think of what they might do to people who are not Democrat loyalists. A party that blatantly steamrolls the democracy of their own voters isn’t likely to be any kinder to an Iowa farmer who goes to church on Sunday, opposes terrorist groups attacking Israel, and spends time at the American Legion hall sipping suds while swapping stories with fellow veterans.
Forget about being a threat to democracy; the Democrat establishment is obliterating it. Because Joe Biden is president, and was democratically chosen to lead his party this November, they cannot simply throw him down the stairs. Instead, they bring about intense and growing public pressure to force him to abdicate the role to which democracy brought him.
Establishment Democrats want to deny the results of the primary and overthrow their nominee because they do not think Biden can win in November. I don’t know if that’s true but there’s polling data showing him to be quite competitive. The Rasmussen tracking poll of 1,500 persons shows his ‘Total Approve’ holding steady since the June 27 presidential debate, while his “Total Disapprove” has actually improved by a percentage point. Additionally, the July 9 ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Biden and Trump tied at 46%, and the July 12 Marist/NPR survey shows Biden leading Trump by two percentage points. Say what you will about the president’s debate performance but the opinion that Joe Biden is toast is far from unanimous.
These polling data aren’t terrific but they suggest Biden hasn’t lost much ground since the debate. Even so, this is hardly a good reason for the Democrat establishment to deny democracy and the will of some 15 million Democrat primary voters by toppling Biden from his place on the ticket. The president has made up his mind; he’s “firmly committed” to abide by the democratic process and continue as the party’s nominee.
There is no more subversive threat to democracy than to repudiate the landslide results of a long-settled primary in pursuit of an intra-party coup d’état. Students of history can be forgiven for seeing parallels between today’s Democrat infighting and the struggle between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks during the early years of the Soviet era. There are constitutional ways of removing Biden from the election equation and if Democrats are serious, they should explore and initiate them. But this overt exercise in authoritarianism by political elites against members of their own party is frighteningly wrong.
Recall the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller. Upon reflecting on the political climate of his native Germany in the 1930s, he said, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.” Neither am I but it’s easy to see the difference between right and wrong. If Democrats are successful in deposing their own democratically elected nominee, there’s no telling who they'll come for next.