The always incisive Tucker Carlson lays it on the line about what "democracy" really means.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: There's something else at stake: democracy itself. I'm not the only one who sees it. We must vote knowing what's at stake and not just the policy of the moment, but institutions that have held us together as we sought a more perfect union are also at stake. We must vote knowing who we have been, what we're risk of becoming. This is a struggle we're now in, a struggle for democracy, a struggle for decency and dignity, a struggle for prosperity and progress, a struggle for the very soul of America itself. Make no mistake, democracy is on the ballot for all of us.
"Democracy is on the ballot," says Joe Biden. No, Joe Biden. The names of candidates are on the ballot. Democracy is not on the ballot because democracy is not determined by the outcome of an election. Democracy is the election itself. Democracy is the process by which citizens choose how they will be governed according to their own desires. That's their choice. It's not yours, but Joe Biden is telling you the opposite and you should know that.
He's telling you that unless you arrive at a very specific outcome, the very outcome he commands you to arrive at, the system itself is illegitimate. We control the system. We have a moral right to control the system. Therefore, if we lose control of the system, the system itself can no longer exist. This is a dramatic misreading of what American democracy is. In American democracy, the people who control the system only have a right to control that system to the extent the public grants them that right through voting. What Biden is describing is the Soviet version of democracy where elections exist to ratify the status quo, to bolster the cabal already in power. That's effectively with the Democratic Party is saying out loud.
Now here's Barack Obama.
BARACK OBAMA: I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now, but we have seen throughout history and we see right now around the world what happens when you give up on democracy. You can see it in countries where the government tells you what books you can and cannot read. Countries where if you dissent, you get put in the jail. Countries where reporters are silenced.
Oh, he's slick. But it's hard to believe he really means that. "I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now," said Barack Obama. Really? The opposite is so obviously true. Democracy is very much a top priority for so many Americans this November and that's why you're seeing record turnout in these midterm elections, because voters are using the only power they have, their ballots in our democracy, to punish their reckless and incompetent leaders and replace them with somebody else.
What you are seeing unmistakably is democracy in action. That would be very obvious to anyone who believes that democracy means representation. But to those who believe that democracy means supporting the Democratic Party, no matter what it does, to those people, this moment has a very different feel. This moment feels like an emergency.
A rejection of Joe Biden's party, from their perspective, is the end of the system itself and they clearly believe that. They mean it. That's why the Biden administration has spent the last two years destroying the two prerequisites for American democracy. Those would be free speech and the rule of law. It's why they've silenced disobedient reporters. It's why they put their political opponents in jail. It's why FBI agents with automatic rifles dragged Christians from their homes for the crime of praying in abortion clinics. It's why nonviolent protesters remain in jail tonight for daring to walk into what used to be called the "People's House" because as far as the Democratic Party is concerned, that house no longer belongs to the people. It belongs to the party, along with the entire U.S. government and the nation itself.
. . .
Here's Ron Klain, Joe Biden's all-powerful chief of staff, issuing an explicit threat to anyone who might be thinking of voting the wrong way next Tuesday.
RON KLAIN: The president decided a few days ago that it was important to issue one final warning on this issue, to make very clear, to leave no doubt that we have people out there still peddling the big lie, people now raising the issue of election denial in this election.
One final warning? One final warning, really? Who do you think you're talking to, Ron Klain? Illiterate villagers? We're Americans. We are free people. You don't get to warn us of anything, much less for the last time. This is your final warning? Yeah. Don't think so. You don't get to say that, Ron Klain.
There's more at the link.
True, all of it . . . except in the eyes of the cabal currently running the Democratic Party. The Republicans aren't much better, of course: you could probably interchange Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell and have their respective parties carry on almost as usual, without noticing the switch. The Uniparty is alive and well and living in Washington.
Of course, there are those who say it's pointless to vote, because we can't change anything. For example, The Good Citizen notes:
The word Democracy today is nothing more than a rhetorical political weapon to wield in justifying tyrannies whenever rulers need to gaslight their constituents. The assumption is always that whatever is a threat to their tyranny is a threat to democracy itself, so they use the word like a club to beat their slaves into submission to keep them voting every few years. It’s a protective shield to hide from the blowback of their own atrocious incompetency while projecting the offer of change if their debt slaves simply lend their minds to the charade of slum and spectacle that is American electoral politics.
I can't argue with a word he says . . . but it doesn't have to be that way, if only we the people will stir our stumps and do something about it.
Let's do all we can during next week's election to make that begin to happen.
Peter
Our governmental powers have become captives of the two major political parties. Until those parties are destroyed, repudiated, and discarded, voting is of very limited utility.
ReplyDeleteI am not optimistic about this election. The democrats and theirs masters have had years of experience stealing elections and this election they have had months and months to rig the outcome. Like Stalin said: "....It's who counts the vote that matters." And until we get rid of the entrenched crooked sonsabitches in the system, nothing changes.
ReplyDeleteMore correctly, they have gotten away with it.
Delete*The vast majority of .gov jobs, at every level, are filled with democrats
*The vast majority of USPS jobs are democrats
*Social Media companies activle suppress anything that harms the .gov or democrats
*The originations that work on elections are mostly Democrat
*The press is as close to 100% progressive/democrat as you can get.
A lot has to change before confidence is restored.
Right MNW, but remember that it was those that ran the Republican party that allowed all of that to happen without any real pushback. They were complicit. Heck, they found a way to personally thrive and benefit playing agreeable loser.
ReplyDeleteEvery single member of Congress for the past 50 years should undergo a forensic audit of their and their families' personal wealth. And there should be a lot of confiscation and clawback, followed by lifetime prison sentences.
With great respect, I would remind the Assembled of two things.
ReplyDeleteFirst, those who actually run things, are not those whose names appear on the ballot. Ever. The entrenched bureaucracy, eternal and ever-present, that cannot be fired or investigated, that protects itself and those it loves with equal vigour, it is this machine that needs to be addressed. It never is. What value, then, to vote?
Second, those who seek public office, for a variety of reasons and from a multitude of perspectives, are by definition not suitable to have the kind of power public office confers. Put another way, those who want this kind of job are the very people who should never be given it. Recall the tale of Cinncinnatus...
Public office should not be seen as a wonderful windfall, turn into an opportunity for personal gain, and be perceived as leaving one 'set for life'. Public office should be seen as an onerous public duty that one undertakes with a certain reluctance, but also as a duty one discharges out of a sense of obligation to one's peers. The example of, upon being selected for such a position, one's personal assets then being held in escrow as surety toward the proper execution of one's public duties, to be forfeit should one be found to be corrupt or if, through one's actions, the public treasury experience inordinate losses, is one that has throughout history served the adoptive societies rather well.
In any event, the way in which the franchise is used under the present system leaves a certain amount to be desired, insofar as an immoral people can find the exercise of same rather diverting, against which the ethical have little defence.
Just some ideas. I despair that the system will have much effect at this late date. We are past the point where the electoral system can solve anything; while this map does have some white spaces, they are being filled in with a certain despatch now.
Joe is confusing Our Democracy with his DNC and GOPe Oligarchy. It's the Oligarchy that is in danger.
ReplyDelete