During the Trump administration, we often heard from Democrats that he was “tearing down the foundations of our democracy,” or some such thing.
They accused him of violating the First Amendment by threatening the freedom of the press when he dared to question their objectivity and fairness.
They claimed his very election was a violation of our democracy because he lost the popular vote.
They squealed when he issued executive orders to curtail illegal immigration and terroristic threats to our country.
And they even charged that the tax cuts of 2017 were a fundamental threat to the republic because they would bankrupt the federal budget and threaten the existence of entitlements for the elderly and poor.
What these foolish people did not see or refused to acknowledge is that we do actually live in a country of laws and checks and balances, and that anything Trump might have tried to do that didn’t actually accord with our Constitution would be checked by lawsuit and judicial rulings, which is exactly what happened.
The same happened to their man President Obama when he overreached on his executive powers and tried to circumvent the legislature. Our system does work, folks, and it can’t be so easily torn down, unless you really do go after some of its key pillars. Yet, that is what we are seeing now.
Freedom of speech is directly being limited by Big Tech with full-throated support of the Democrats. Trump’s Twitter account was shut down and recently, a YouTube video of Gov. Rick DeSantis discussing Covid policies with top-tier medical professionals was taken down by YouTube for violating their Orwellian “community standards.”
Many on the Left claim that “speech is violence” when it levels criticism at certain groups or ideologies, and so the constitutional protections afforded to speech therefore can be restrained.
In one of the most brazen and heinous examples of this trend, we see Democrats advocating for the end of the Senate filibuster, this when not too long ago they were baying at the moon at that very prospect. What has been a lynchpin of our deliberative legislative process and a curb on the excesses of majority rule is now severely under threat because the Democrats can’t win enough seats in the Senate to ram through their legislative agenda.
Added to this list of assaults on our democracy is the notion of packing the Supreme Court, which Biden is forming a commission to examine. Once again, because the Democrats lost fair and square, they are now wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater and pervert the traditional structure of the SCOTUS in order to ram their ideology down the throats of Americans while ensuring their electoral hegemony for the foreseeable future.
Another insult to our republic is the refusal of Democrats, both federal and local, to enforce laws they don’t like, laws passed by the duly-elected legislatures of our country and states. If some social-justice-warrior-turned-mayor doesn’t want to enforce immigration law in their city or state, so be it! They just ignore the law and the negative and sometimes deadly consequences of doing so.
On a less procedural but perhaps more important level, Democrats, the Left, and the media have launched an all out war on the principles of the country itself. No longer is America regarded as the “land of the free”, as the beacon of democracy and social harmony that we have always strived to be. No. It is instead the seat of endemic racism, based on a racist founding to pursue racist ends. We are now, in their eyes, nothing more than a bastion of white supremacy deserving of scorn and wholesale dismantlement.
Others are listening to this. A Chinese government delegation spent some 15 minutes haranguing the U.S. for its systemic racism and human rights abuses, as clearly evidenced by the protests and riots of last summer.
The Chinese Communists, who have concentration camps for Muslims, routinely jail and torture dissidents, and regularly flaunt international law, are now saying the U.S. is morally bankrupt and without any legitimacy on the world stage, precisely because they accept the claims of the BLM-inspired politicians who having nothing but scorn for our great nation and its people.
And, of course, no assault against the building blocks of our nation would be complete without attacks on 2nd Amendment rights, attacks which do nothing to solve gun violence but only serve to make the advocates of such measures look good to their sycophants in Washington and the media.
These things, I contend, really are threats to our democracy. Seeking to abolish the electoral college, eliminate the filibuster, pack the court, curtail speech, limit religious freedom, ignore the rule of law, encourage lawlessness, besmirch our national history and identity, and prevent citizens from protecting their liberty with their speech, votes, and guns are all hallmarks of the current Democratic-media-academic-corporate establishment.
What to say in the face of such a calamity? Words seem insufficient. One can only turn to God to untangle such massive knots of human wickedness and pride. He is The Truth, and the truth is the only thing that can set us free from this miasma of lies and rage that drive the political process. So we must first turn to him and ask for the truth about ourselves, and about who we are, and then perhaps we can work in small ways to restore our republic and defend it against the inchoate, savage attempts to tear it down.
I genuinely pray for such a grace to befall us, and to turn back from the road of destruction and towards with one of freedom, harmony, and true human flourishing.
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
Besides the usual partisan myopia of Hoffman’s weekly rants, this letter is filled with so many factual errors that I almost feel embarrassed for Trey. He fails to evidence even a rudimentary understanding of the U.S. Constitution.
The First Amendment protects citizens from government intrusion upon free speech, not from nongovernmental entities. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have as much right to censure a user for not adhering to their standards as Trey’s church has to ban a gay evangelist from speaking.
The filibuster is nowhere even alluded to in the Constitution, and its invention would surely make Madison queasy. Curbing the excesses of the majority was accomplished by granting equal representation of senators to each state regardless of population. The only requirements of a super-majority in the Constitution were for overriding a Presidential veto and impeachment.
The number of Supreme Court justices is not fixed in the Constitution and has changed many times throughout U.S. history. I happen to think nine is a good number, but it would be Constitutional to have 20. As far as recent justice confirmations being “fair and square,” that is a farce. Impartiality would dictate that either Merrick Garland is on the court or Amy Barret is not. The same rules should apply to all nominees during the final year of a presidential term.
Perhaps the most offensive part of Trey’s letter is, after he posits so many untruths, he appeals to a deity to vindicate his position. In his Christian religious tradition, there is an angel who champions his weekly letters. Jesus identifies this angel in John 8:44.
Truth is stranger than fiction.