By Robert E.L. Walters
Illustration by Leo Dragon's Works
Unless you've been vacationing with Elon Musk on one of Saturn's less fashionable, more eclipsed moons this summer, you're probably aware that the United States has experienced a somewhat irregular presidential campaign in 2024. To summarize: the incumbent president, who everyone from the press to the pundits to the cabinet to the Vice President assured us was fine and dandy to serve the country for another four years, until we plainly saw with our own eyes that he wasn't, and who was subsequently yanked from his party's ticket faster than a staffer turning state's evidence, in favor of his vapid Vice President, Kamala Harris-- it's been one down and dirty roller coaster ride after another. I apologize for the run-on sentence, but that's just how breathless this summer has been.
Modern "Liberals" (which is to say: ideologically leftist statists a la Lenin) find nothing at all disconcerting about any of this. In the modern "Liberal" mindset, any and all means must be employed in the pursuit of "Progress" (another term I'm placing in quotes) whatever the cost.
A good place to start in this election cycle is the "Liberal" talking point that Donald Trump poses a threat to democracy in general and to our republic in particular. We'll explore the finer points of this rhetoric in a few moments, but let's look at how Kamala Harris has risen to her recent pinnacle of power. Joe Biden, despite being in his eighties, unstable on his feet, and at times publicly confused and disengaged, ran for the nomination of his party nearly unopposed and won. After a withering debate performance when even his most loyal boosters couldn't hide his sad decrepitude any longer, his party pressured him into leaving the race and stand aside for his Vice President. Note to "Liberals," this is not democratic and to be honest, is behavior one would expect from a Politburo.
As for a threat to the republic, didn't Ms. Harris take an oath to defend the Constitution? How about the member's of Mr. Biden's cabinet? The last time I checked, the Twenty-fifth Amendment was part of the Constitution. How can Ms. Harris not be a threat to the republic when she so woefully ignored one of her three (count' em folks THREE!) constitutional duties, by not informing Congress that the President was incapable of running the executive branch? We're still waiting Ms. Harris. We understand that the President is not up to four more years in office, but are we supposed to believe after what we have seen so far and what we have previously been told and seen disproved, that he's just dandy for now? The First Lady attending a long overdue cabinet meeting and the President's felonious son acting as gatekeeper to the West Wing is not reassuring to these objective eyes.
If all this sounds a bit disingenuous, that perception is only underscored by the party's fanatical rank-closing around Ms. Harris in a show of omertà that even the mafia would admire. For fans of the musical Chicago, one can almost picture Ms. Harris seated on the lap of her Serene Pomposity The Speaker Emeritus (whatever that means) Nancy Pelosi, in their very own version of We Both Reached For the Gun where "gun" is replaced by "nod" (as in "nod" from the party) while party luminaries and the the national press corps dance on strings behind them in a well-executed Bob Fosse Charleston.
Seemingly the Democrats are the ones who have a chronic distaste for democracy and our republic. Can any of us forget the contempt her Serene Pomposity The Speaker Emeritus had for both the institution of the Presidency and her own office when she tore-up the State of The Union speech of a duly-elected sitting president on national television? I can't. Earlier this week The Socratic Review published an essay by Merrill Matthews that recently appeared in The Hill entitled: For Democrats, ‘freedom’ is just another word for mandate. In this piece, Mr. Matthews explores the insincere marketing of the term "freedom" by the Democratic party who clearly stand for anything but. Here I will add a few of my own thoughts to his observations.
My first thought of how the Democrats abhor and have no interest in democracy is abortion. If I see one more ad claiming Republicans are out to ban abortion, I may scream. As a refresher for my illiberal modern "Liberal" friends, the abortion rights you feel were "lost" were never democratically gained in the first place. They were based on judicial fiat based on a crazy interpretation of an over-used and consistently misapplied Constitutional amendment that was passed under duress and martial law over 150 years ago. The reversal of Roe Versus Wade (based by the way, on the reasons I just mentioned above) did not reduce the democratization of this issue-- it re-established it.
The modern "Liberals" don't enjoy things like this that reek of logic. The fact that a woman's right to choose is returned to the electorate is somehow deemed "undemocratic" while likewise one Supreme Court decision to their liking is deemed "democratic" and another reversing that position is deemed "undemocratic." If this paragraph makes you dizzy, imagine how hard it must be for an aide typing up the current Democratic platform.
Next let's explore the "big tent" that is the Democratic Party. I have often made a point of saying that, as a gay male, it is very hard for me to support a party that supports Islamic fundamentalism. In political ad after political ad the Democrats tout the horrors of Christian fundamentalism, especially as it relates to abortion and a woman's "freedom" to choose. Note to Democrats: not only do fundamentalist Muslims abhor abortion to say nothing of any form of legal rights for woman, they believe homosexuality is worthy of death and torture and is illegal in even "advanced" Muslim locales such as Qatar.
The lockstep adherence of many gays to the Democratic party has always mystified me, especially since so many gays are business owners and/or high-income professionals who are directly affected by the Democrats' collectivist and regulatory tendencies. However, this year's blind adherence to the Democratic party is particularly astounding considering that for the first time in history, we have a thirty-eight year-old gay man (Chase Oliver) nominated by the third largest political party in the United States on a particularly left leaning Libertarian platform, that no one in the gay community (as far as I can tell) has even acknowledged.
Believe me, I understand the concept of coalition governments, but for the life of me, how do you get gay men, orthodox Jews, orthodox Muslims, feminists, high-income celebrities and entrepreneurs, trial lawyers, environmentalists, and collectivist statists to sit at the same table? Doesn't anyone at the table see that most of their agendas are diametrically opposed? One can only conclude (logically) that in order to make such a big tent viable, not a single party within that tent has any expectation of seeing their agenda come to fruition. In other words, I can only conclude the party is seeking power for the sake of power versus power for the sake of governance.
This is perhaps their most disquieting threat to democracy and the republican form of government. If the Democrats truly are seeking power for the sake of power in lieu of governance, what are their plans with that power once it is gained?
In an act I can only describe as political projection and electoral judo, the modern "Liberals" have tipped their hand in this respect by attacking Mr. Trump and the Republican party. Now, don't get me wrong, Mr. Trump is no boy scout. But a Machiavellian threat to democratic rule? Really? This is particularly amusing since the left has told us for years that Mr. Trump is too stupid to be President, but now he's suddenly smart enough to overthrow the republic single-handedly. Obviously the Democrats have been watching Star Wars too much and have convinced themselves that Donald Trump is some sort of a Sith lord.
Much of the left's current hyperbole centers around Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,"a document Mr. Trump has disavowed repeatedly and appears nowhere in the 2024 Republican National Platform. As a libertarian who would gladly vote for Andrew Jackson or Calvin Coolidge if they were running in 2024, there are some aspects of Project 2025 I find tantalizingly appealing, but to be honest, its little more than libertarian porn, since less than1% of it would ever get through Congress. However, the left's fantastical pearl clasping over transformational changes to the United States government only make sense when seen through the lens of what they have been trying to do since the Wilson administration. Doth thou protest too much? I think so.
In short, there is nothing liberal in 2024 Democratic Party Platform which starts out with Native American apologia, transitions into classism, and then barrels into Leninist economic pipe dreams. As a classic liberal who believes in the republican form of government, I urge all modern "Liberals" to read the 2024 Libertarian National Platform. Curiously, the Libertarian Platform talks about all the things your ads address like freedom. "All individuals are sovereign over their own lives and are not forced to sacrifice their values for the benefit of others." This my modern "Liberal" friends is a definition of freedom, not the left-wing statist tyranny of a nanny state that your platform seeks, and your past actions have produced.
This whole summer roller coaster ride would have been delightful if it had been a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Sadly, it wasn't. I wonder if Elon has a seat for me on his next junket to Saturn? I understand Enceladus is lovely in the fall.
Closing Note: We at The Socratic Review have provided links in text for all three major party platform papers as well as the Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. I am copying each of these links below for easy reference, and I encourage all my readers to review these documents so you can form your own opinions before voting in November. In a world dominated by memes and sound bites, we as citizens of a republic have the responsibility to read source documents unfiltered in order to form our own unbiased opinions.
Thank you for reading!
Robert E.L. Walters
Editor-in-Chief
The Socratic Review
Comments