Samuel Mangold-Lenett writes for the Federalist about a disconnect between Democratic politicians’ words and deeds when it comes to their goals.
While issuing remarks this past weekend at Valley Forge to commemorate the third anniversary of the Jan 6. Capitol kerfuffle, President Biden asked the public, “Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?”
It’s ironic, considering this question came moments after Biden went on about the sacrifices made by Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army, comparing himself to the nation’s first president and his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, to a corrupt, power-obsessed King George III.
Set aside the heresy of our devout Catholic leader, the simple fact of the matter is that “democracy” never was, and still isn’t, “our sacred cause.” Of course, one could wax poetic about apples of gold and frames of silver to try to discern what “our sacred cause” might be, but that’s neither here nor there. The reality is that expansive appeals to national democracy have been made for decades to undermine local authority and consolidate power in an unaccountable bureaucratic managerial apparatus.
The bastardized quasi-democracy in which we currently find ourselves is the result of this. Sure, there are technically different branches of government that technically perform different functions, but at the federal level, the only thing that actually makes things happen is the bureaucracy. So now, the nation lives and dies at the outcome of a vote because the results determine just how much power will be relegated to the administrative apparatus and with how much impunity it will be allowed to operate.
Ultimately, Democrats’ “sacred cause” is nothing less than their complete consolidation of institutional power.
This is, in large part, why political messaging has become so manic over the last decade and why stooges like Aaron Rupar uncritically amplified Biden’s faux-patriotic and onanistic attacks on Fox News.