Conservatives uneasy with President Trump’s rhetoric and style need only to turn to comments by the self-righteous triumvirate of Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and James Carville to face the reality of liberalism’s far greater radicalism.
In an August 8th press conference admonishing the Texas’ legislature attempt at redistricting and altering congressional maps, California Democrats announced they will… attempt to redistrict and alter congressional maps. California governor Gavin Newsom said that Democrats will try, via a ballot measure, to “nullify what happens in Texas,” arguing that his approach will be done “with the consent of the people” compared to Texas. For progressives in California, forms of direct democracy are their quick-to-the bloodstream rush in enacting their agenda. For example, 354 citizens’ initiatives were on the ballot there from 1912-2013 according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Newsom’s proposal would hastily push aside, for this upcoming congressional election cycle, California’s independent redistricting commission which proclaims itself as a body providing “fair representation for all Californians.” Too fair now for Democrats, as the commission inconveniently produces too many Republican seats. Democrats once again rush ahead solely for self-preservation, bypassing the skill required by serious legislating and thus disposing of serious thinking. But any serious person can see that when Newsom says he has had “enough” of what Republicans are doing, he means he is through with Republicans voting with any success.
The Left is averse to honest debate, thus drafting legislation and persuading the people’s chosen legislative representatives is a nuisance. One of their sclerotic legislators is Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. Supporting the Democrat members of the Texas legislature that scattered to anywhere but Texas, she said their fleeing was “self-defense for our democracy.” Not doing one’s job for the people is not self-defense but political self-immolation. In January 2019, Democrat Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said “We don’t govern by temper tantrum.” The “we” evidently did not include themselves but only applies to those like the Republican legislators in Texas that seek to express authentic political will. Democracy for me, not for thee.
Democrat James Carville can at least be credited with thinking big in trying to solve the Left’s nagging problem of Republicans holding office. Speaking on a podcast on August 7th, he said of Democrats: “They are just going to have to unilaterally add Puerto Rico and District Columbia as states… They’re just going to have to do it. And they may have to expand the [Supreme Court] to 13 members.” The insistent demand to remove any Republican majority, for all time, is striking in Carville’s comments. One should also ask Governor Newsom if his notion of the people’s “consent” is consistent with Carville’s ‘unilateral’ approach to changing the very structure of government to assure the Left’s permanent power. As Carville candidly reveals here, the Democratic Party at least knows how to count. They are keenly aware that a lasting shift of a few more votes in the House, Senate, and Supreme Court would favor their policy goals in perpetuity, leaving them unburdened from the hard work of political bargaining (they long for their U.S. House majority from 1955-95). Liberalism’s permanent majority would not only nullify conservative voices but also paths to prosperity and our ’small r’ republican form of government.
The late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia said in 2011 that “the real key to the distinctiveness of America is the structure of our government.” It is that distinctiveness the Left seeks to render inert, admonishing any Republican attempt to rightly preserve persuasive electoral politics. To politically persuade requires a certain patience, an attunement to the people’s concrete way of living and an awareness of human nature not blinded by ideology. It is why politics, as properly understood in our representative system, is contrary to progressive aims.
Alan Loncar is an attorney in Macomb County, Michigan.
Image: AT via Magic Studio