American Elephants

Daniel Henninger had a splendid column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. “Democrat’s assaults on the Trump presidency roll in like the ocean’s tides. But the one that landed on the beach today that deserves to go under the microscope. It is the notion that Donald Trump is a dictator.”

He rolls on through Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to appear before the committee after being slandered and ridiculed the day before, noting the other Democrats who piled on. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) raged that “If a Democratic President acted this way. Republicans would be calling him or her a dictator. Henninger added that this is progress. We’ve moved on from Trump-is-Hitler to mere dictator, which is discussable.

Nadler added that what is at stake in the standoff between President Trump and the Democrats is “the very system of government of the United States is “the very system of government of the United States, the system of limited power…”

Henninger asked “When in the past 20 years has a national Democrat invoked “limited power”?”

He added:

Of late, the Democratic left has adopted a familiar post election strategy: Taint elections they lose, and then delegitimize the opposition in the public’s mind to win the next election. …

America’s political left is impatient for power. It is frustrated it hasn’t been able to achieve its agenda on issues like health-care nationalization or climate policy through the normal legislative process, so it is trying to force it—by redesigning the political system to give itself power long enough to impose what it wants. In short, by dictating policy change.

To get there, the left is pushing to abolish the Electoral College and expand the Supreme Court. As power grabs go, these are pretty naked.

That’s quite clearly what today’s Democrats are up to. They would prefer to be running the country, saving us all from the horrors of climate change to secure their perpetual control. Pay attention to China’s electronic control of the Chinese people, and treatment of dissidents. The Uighurs, a Moslem segment of the Chinese people, are essentially in a concentration camp to be re-educated. Putin has
adopted the Chinese system of computerized facial recognition, which he is putting into force in Moscow. The Russians are apparently to be monitored as the Chinese people are. Total control would seem to be not far behind. Live correctly and behave properly, and the government will allow you to use the government facilities like trains and planes, and perhaps even travel. I suppose such control is so enticing for dictator types that it would be hard to resist. It is up to Americans to be alert to what is going on around the world, and what the implications are for our freedom.

I natter a lot about human nature, and trying to understand that which is just human nature and not subject to being “fixed.”. We are a highly imperfect species, and many cannot resist the attempt to grab for more power and control. Bureaucracy is an enemy, not our friend.