TRUMP: A THREAT TO "DEMOCRACY"?

Desperate people will say anything. And the Radical Left is getting desperate as they look to the November election.

They can’t run on the economy. The voters know that inflation has wiped out any financial gains, and they have less buying power than they had four years ago.

They can’t hide behind the COVID pandemic as they did in 2020. Increasingly, Americans are realizing that the lockdowns and compulsory vaccinations probably did more harm than good.

They can’t run on foreign policy – not after the Afghanistan debacle, which in turn encouraged Russia to invade Ukraine, Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel, and bolder moves by China and North Korea.

They certainly can’t run on the border, which has become a non-border, letting in terrorists and criminals as well as people who will take jobs from American blacks and Hispanics.

And their principal candidate, President Biden, is becoming a liability, and Vice-President Harris even more so.

So in desperation, they have developed a new campaign theme: This is a campaign to “Save Our Democracy.” You see, they say, “Donald Trump hates democracy, and if he is elected, he will destroy our democracy and establish a dictatorship.”

Never mind that the Framers did not establish a pure democracy with unfettered majority rule; they established a constitutional republic with limits on government power and protection for minority rights. But we also recognize that people loosely use the term “democracy” today to refer to representative government in general.

And never mind that in his first term of office, President Trump did not establish a dictatorship. Rather, through numerous executive orders he abolished regulations promulgated by administrative agencies of the executive branch, thereby divesting himself of power. Just repeat the mantra: “Trump hates democracy, and if elected he will establish a totalitarian dictatorship.”

Let me suggest that, if there is a threat to “democracy,” that threat comes from Biden/Harris and the Radical Left.

Has the Biden/Harris Administration – and I use the term Biden/Harris because the Vice-President will have to stand on the Biden record -- really become a threat to democracy? As Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence before enumerating the grievances against George III, “To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.-”

+ Biden/Harris and their Radical Left allies have, as of July 2, 2024, signed 139 executive orders, 190 presidential memoranda, 629 proclamations, and 129 notices. While the number of executive orders is fewer than those signed by President Trump, many of Biden’s orders expand federal power while Trump’s orders deregulated the economy and limited federal power. Furthermore, many of his presidential memoranda are really executive orders under the guise of memoranda, issued as memoranda so the Administration does not have to meet the legal requirements for adoption of an executive order, such as pre-publication and public comment. On four occasions the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the Biden Administration’s regulations as usurping the authority of Congress : National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA (2022) (OSHA vaccine requirements exceeded authority granted to OSHA by Congress), West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022) (EPA carbon emissions regulations exceeded authority granted to EPA by Congress), Biden v. Nebraska (2023) (Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan exceeded authority delegated to him by Congress – but Biden defied the Supreme Court with a slightly modified plan that will cost the taxpayers at least $870 billion. That plan, too, has recently been struck down by the Eighth Circuit, but the same day the Circuit made its decision, Biden/Harris announced another loan forgiveness program), Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) (holding that courts rather than administrative agencies must interpret federal laws).

+ Biden/Harris and their allies have usurped the powers of states and local school boards, ordering LGBTQ policies that states, school boards, and parents do not want, and requiring teachers and students to use “personal pronouns” that violate their free speech rights and, in some cases, their religious convictions.

+ Biden/Harris and their allies have ruined women’s athletics by forcing them to compete against supposedly transgendered men.

+ Biden and his allies have weaponized the FBI and the Department of Justice, ordering them to treat parents as terrorists for objecting to Leftist school board policies, prosecuting peaceful abortion protesters under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), punishing with fines and disbarment attorneys who advance what they call unorthodox theories of law, threatening to revoke the medical licenses of doctors who dare question Dr. Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control, and bringing numerous criminal charges against Biden’s leading opponent in the 2024 election.

+ Biden/Harris and their allies have leaned on social media, pressuring them to “deplatform” those whose views do not conform to Biden’s orthodoxy.

+ Biden/Harris and their allies have nominated and confirmed federal judges and one Supreme Court justice who believe in the “Living Constitution” and reject jurisprudence of original intent, and who thereby are willing to recognize government powers that are not found in the Constitution.

+ Biden/Harris and their allies have vowed to reinstate Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that created a “right” to abortion even though it is not found in the Constitution, thereby depriving the people and the states of their right to regulate abortion by the democratic process. They have also misused the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to force the State of Idaho to permit abortions in violation of state law (Moyle v. United States, 2024; case remanded to lower courts for further determination).

+ Biden/Harris and their allies have pushed for strict gun control laws, ignoring the warnings of James Madison in Federalist No. 46 and Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 29 that an armed populace is a necessary defense against federal tyranny and ignoring the observation of Justice Joseph Story that the Second Amendment is the outer palladium of the defense of liberty.

+ Biden/Harris and their allies have misused federal evidence-tampering charges to excessively punish a January 6 protester (See Fischer v. United States (2024), a case that could affect at least 300 other January 6 defendants).

+ Biden and his allies have used illegal and unconstitutional means to alter election laws and voting requirements to encourage and facilitate illegal voting. There are two ways of depriving you of your right to vote: (1) Not allowing you to vote; or (2) Canceling out your vote with the vote of an illegal voter.

+ Biden/Harris and their allies, with the eager cooperation of the mainstream media, have hidden from the public the true extent of Biden’s cognitive decline and have left Americans in the dark about who is actually pulling the strings and running the government. This violates a basic principle of representative government: The people have a right to know who is actually running the government. After the debate, the secret is out. Under intense pressure, President Biden has withdrawn from the Presidential race and has endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris, thus undoing the will of 14 million Democrat voters as expressed in the primaries. Harris, after repeatedly lying to the American public about President Biden’s mental state and fitness for office, now seems to be the likely stand-in Democrat nominee. And this is “saving democracy”?

In these and in many other ways, Biden/Harris and the Radical Left have violated constitutional limitations, bypassed Congress and the courts, centralized the powers of government, and forced their agenda upon state and local governments and upon the people. As the Declaration of Independence says, “A Prince [or Princess] whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

I make no dire predictions that our constitutional republic, or what’s left of it, will end after the November 2024 election. I only say that if there is a threat to “democracy as we know it,” that threat comes from Biden/Harris and the Radical Left.

Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu) and as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law (morallaw.org). He may be reached for speaking engagements at eidsmoeja@juno.com.

This column is adapted and updated from an Eidsmoe column originally published by 1819 News.

THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.