Biggest Threat to the Republic: the Radical Left

For most of my adult life I have counseled folks that, in terms of politics, if your side wins, things will not be as good as you hoped.  If your side loses, things will not be as bad as you fear. As a corollary, I have also comforted my fellow seniors that – if worse comes to worse — at least we will live out our lives before we see the more oppressive effects of radical left big central government authoritarianism. 

As we see the rise of the radical left via the Democratic Party – and the corruption of our communication industries — I’m not sure either assurance is valid.

For the first time, I see a threat to our small-r republican form of government. 

The authoritarians are inside the gate. They are not, however, that band of thugs that rioted on Capitol Hill.  They are not even the radical left who have repeatedly created anti-American violence in the streets.

For sure, those who resort to vandalism, arson, looting and occasionally murderous attacks are the enemies of the Constitution, law-and-order and the American tradition of peaceful protest.  But they are a limited problem that good law enforcement can dispatch. They may be loud, disruptive and marginally dangerous. But they pose no real threat to the Republic unless we let them.  We have endured such malcontents in the past – and they will burst forth with acts of violence in the future.

The real threat to our freedom comes from those who promote the expansion of the power and might of a federal government controlled by a one-party elite. 

Their goal is to abolish our limited federal system in which primary power rests in the states and with the people (read the Tenth Amendment) in favor of an all-powerful central government. They want to nullify the powers of the states and the people.  It is a plain-in-sight conspiracy between elected officials seeking permanent empowerment, entrenched bureaucrats, a compromised news media and a powerful class of business oligarchs.  All the characteristics of autocratic governance.

In less than one week, President Joe Biden and the radical left have moved quickly to consolidate and expand power.  Biden is issuing Executive Orders at an unprecedented pace. Every one of them designed to increase the power of the federal government. They also want to promote the permanent empowerment of the Democratic Party.

He is trumping up (no pun intended) a series of dubious, exaggerated and bogus national crises to seize more power.  Climate change is deemed not a problem, but a crisis.  Even as the Covid-19 cases are on the decline, it is a crisis.  Conversely, the economic impact of the left-wing policies to address the pandemic are creating an economic crisis.  These are all serious issues with which to be dealt in a serious manner. But the Biden solution is to seize more of the national taxpayer income – borrow more from foreign governments – to concentrate greater power in Washington.

The most effective strategy for the radical left:

To use the national treasury as a means of bonding people to dependency on the federal government. 

It was what Benjamin Franklin presciently envisioned when he said,  “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” 

For generations, the one-party Democrat regimes in our major cities have used the largess of government to maintain one-party empowerment. They do this by playing the race card while keeping minorities segregated and subservient.

The Biden administration is proposing the expenditure of trillions of dollars from the federal treasury – funded by taxation and borrowing – to expand reliance on the folks in Washington.  People are misled to believe that not only is the regulatory interdiction of the federal government beneficial – it is downright necessary.  It is neither.

If anyone doubts that permanent empowerment by the Washington leftwing establishment is not the game plan, they only need to follow the vilification and demonization of the political opposition.  They broad-brush accusations against all Republicans and conservatives.  They call on the public to harass Republican leaders in public.  To block conservative voices from the airwaves and the social media platforms.  Ban conservative speakers from campuses.   The talk of de-programming those who do not accept the left-wing party line.  They turn a blind eye – and even encourage – street violence against traditional American values of personal freedom.  They even have proposed removing children from households that do not comply with radical left governance to be re-educated by the state.

These are all the marks of the beast of political authoritarianism.

These are the cultural and political environments that we see so clearly in Russia, China, North Korea and Cuba.  The creation and crushing of alleged enemies of the state is exactly what Hitler did in Germany.  He used the power of an authoritarian central government to create a frenzy of hatred against a totally concocted enemy. In his case, it was the Jewish population. 

I grew up in a society that was not as free as my grandparents.  My kids are growing up in a society that is not nearly as free as it was in my youth.  We are gradually losing the power to govern ourselves.

There is an anecdotal story of the frog.  If dropped into a pan of hot water, it will instantly jump out.  But if in a slowly-heated pan of water, it will die there.  I fear that we are that frog.

So, there ‘tis.