The Left’s Backward Plan to ‘Save’ Democracy
By Fred Bauer
January 6, 2022 6:30 AM
I n his farewell address as president, George Washington warned that “the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge,” could be a “frightful despotism” and lead to an even more miserable tyranny. Washington here recognized that factional passions — especially when they cloak themselves in the language of existential emergency — can unsettle a democratic republic.
Two recent documents illustrate how calls for emergency politics can worsen the polarization that is causing so much political disruption today. First, a New York Times editorial warns that every day is January 6; the Republican Party is supposedly targeting democracy, so the legislative filibuster should be ended to save democracy. Second, a “dear colleague” letter from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer makes the same point even more explicitly. Comparing elected Republicans across the country to “the violent insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol nearly one year ago,” Senator Schumer threatens to nuke the filibuster — for democracy’s sake, of course — if Republicans continue to filibuster certain Democratic election-reform proposals.
It should go without saying that this sort of domestic politics of existential conflict itself poses grave risks to democratic stability.
more
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/the-lefts-backward-plan-to-save-democracy/
