Posts published in “Campaigns and Elections”

Trump Lost, but the Republican Party Won Big in the 2020 Election

Trump Lost, but the Republican Party Won Big in the 2020 Election

By John R Guardiano on November 14, 2020

Even in deep blue states like California, the voters rejected one-party rule and sent Republicans to Congress to check President Biden.

Before the election, we warned that a Biden win almost certainly would mean Democratic control of the Senate and the consequent “progressive” or socialist remaking of America into a very different country than the one bequeathed to us by our founding fathers.

That is because, in these politically polarized times, split-ticket voting has become passé, and the Democratic Party has moved further and further to the left in the past decade.

Well, we are pleased to report that in 2020, the American people actually embraced split-ticket voting to a degree that no one anticipated. Consequently, although Trump lost the presidential election, the Republican Party otherwise did quite well. Consider:

Senate. The Republicans retained control of the Senate, pending the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia, which they are expected to win.

Yet, in the months leading up to the election, Democrats spoke boldly about winning as many as six new Senate seats, eliminating the filibuster, making Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico new states, packing the courts, and sending the GOP into the dustbin of history.

Not anymore. Because of the GOP’s unexpected Senate wins in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, and elsewhere, President Biden will be forced to compromise with Senate Republicans—and progressive plans to enact radical and irreversible changes to our very system of government are now dead on arrival.

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1324062616898121729?s=20

House of Representatives. Republicans gained an astounding 10-15 seats in the House of Representatives. (Some House races have yet to be decided; hence the variability of these results.)

“Republicans in Congress won every incumbent seat and 28 out of 29 competitive seats identified by the New York Times’ Nate Silver,” reports Bethany Blankley in The Center Square.

https://twitter.com/henryolsenEPPC/status/1325254596252459008?s=20

As a result, the Democrats have their smallest majority in 60 years. Republicans, meanwhile, are well-positioned to retake control of the House in the 2022 mid-term elections.

Equally important for the GOP’s future in an increasingly diverse country: there will be a record number of Republican women in the House, 35, up from just 13 currently; and these new representatives include Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and Middle Easterners.

https://twitter.com/CarlosGimenezFL/status/1327665132395229185?s=20

Governorships. Republicans won one new governorship (in Montana) and thus control 27 gubernatorial mansions.

In New Hampshire, a blue state in the heart of deep blue New England, independent conservative Chris Sununu was reelected with a resounding 65 percent of the vote.

https://twitter.com/The_RGA/status/1324439721699954697?s=20

Sununu is young, whip-smart and a political winner. He has to be at the top of the list for 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls.

State Legislatures. Republicans retained their lock on most state legislatures: by capturing control of the New Hampshire state house and state senate, while preventing the Democrats from flipping a single state legislative body.

This even though the far left spent huge sums of money to wrest control of the states from the GOP.

The Republicans now control 30 state legislatures, with control of one state legislature split between the two parties and control of another state legislature yet to be determined.

The Democrats, by contrast, control just 18 state legislatures, albeit in three of the largest states in the union: California, New York, and Illinois.

Ballot Initiatives. Republicans won overwhelmingly in ballot initiatives nationwide, even in deep blue California and Illinois.

Californians, for instance, voted down an effort to repeal that state’s ban on racial preferences, and they retained their state’s cap on property taxes.

https://twitter.com/ECalifornians/status/1327017400848371712?s=20

They also decisively defeated a union-pushed ballot initiative that would have eliminated independent contractors, curtailed worker employment options, and stunted the gig economy.

Illinois voters rebuffed Democratic Governor, J.B. Pritzker, by voting down a graduated or progressive income tax measure that he had championed.

Coloradans, meanwhile, voted 57 percent to 43 percent for “a simple reduction in the state’s income tax, from 4.63 percent to 4.55 percent,” writes Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.

However, he adds, voters in Arkansas and Arizona approved tax hikes—albeit through political deception and trickery in Arkansas and very narrowly and dubiously in Arizona.

Conclusion. As William A. Gallston sums it up, the 2020 election

was a defeat for Donald Trump but a victory for the Republican Party, which turned back most challenges to incumbent senators, fought off Democratic efforts to flip state legislatures, and made gains in the House.

The American people have voted for divided government and a less divisive tone in national politics.

Amen to that and God bless America. May our nation—and a viable two-party system committed to the Constitution and the rule of law—live long and prosper.

Feature photo credit: Rep.-Elect Michelle Steel (R-California), courtesy of her Facebook page.

The Truth About Voter Fraud in the 2020 Election

The Truth About Voter Fraud in the 2020 Election

By John R Guardiano on November 11, 2020

The media are wrong: Republicans have good reason to be concerned about voter fraud. Electoral shenanigans, however, do not explain Biden’s lead over Trump.

“Progressives” and other lefties are feigning dismay at the fact that, as Politico reports, “70 percent of Republicans don’t think the [2020] election was free and fair.”

“Republicans have declared war on democracy itself,” exclaims Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman.

“Because the facts are not on Trump’s side, his campaign only has conspiracies and disinformation to make their argument,” insists CNN’s Oliver Darcy.

“This is what happens when lies and baseless allegations go unchecked,” writes communications consultant Brian Wagner.

Hypocrisy. This is rich coming from the same media and political partisans who, four short years ago, were eagerly sowing doubt about the legitimacy of Trump’s election. The president-elect then, we were told, won because of “Russian interference.”

American voters, we were told, were duped by the Russians; and Trump himself, it was not-so-subtly implied, was perhaps a Russian agent or willing accomplice.

It was only much later that we learned the much-vaunted “Steele Dossier,” upon which most of these allegations were based, was, in fact, a complete hoax “paid for by the Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump.”

As Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it:

Let’s not have any lectures about how the president should immediately and cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election.

Truth. Of course, consistency and fairness have never been the hallmarks of our political and media class. The operative question is: are Republican voters wrong to suspect that foul play and voter fraud affected the outcome of the election?

The truth is: yes and no. Multiple things can be true—and in this case are true—simultaneously:

There is voter fraud: it is a real, if overstated, problem.

“Voter fraud exists—even though many in the media claim it doesn’t,” wrote John Fund and Hans A. von Spakovsky two years ago before the 2018 mid-term elections.

“Significant risks of potential abuse exist in many states’ election systems, as I detailed in a report in August,” wrote Cato Institute scholar Ilya Shapiro just days before Nov. 3, 2020, election.

A primary risk is ballot harvesting, which involves third parties collecting and delivering absentee ballots on voters’ behalf.

Newsweek reports: Ronna McDaniel, the Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, told Fox News commentator Sean Hannity “that she has 234 pages containing 500 sworn affidavits alleging 11,000 incidents of various types of voter fraud.”

“Contrary to the claims of many liberals,” explains the Heritage Foundation, “the problem of voter fraud is as old as the country itself.

As the U.S. Supreme Court noted when it upheld Indiana’s voter identification law, “flagrant examples” of voter fraud “have been documented throughout this nation’s history by respected historians and journalists.”

Historically, Democratic political machines in big cities and large urban areas such as Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York have been cesspools of electoral corruption. This is a political and historical fact that Republicans have learned the hard way.

Indeed, as Jim Antle recounts in The Week:

Republican lore is full of stories about dead people voting and big Democratic political machines stealing elections since the days of Tammany Hall.

Fifty years before today’s fights over Pennsylvania, Michigan and beyond, [and] 40 years before Florida’s hanging chads, Richard Nixon was narrowly defeated by John F. Kennedy—thanks, many to this day maintain, to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the Cook County Democrats’ malfeasance…

Republicans have at the rank-and-file level become the party of voter ID because to them it is axiomatic that if you let an election get too close, the big-city liberals will steal it.

By all accounts, voter fraud does not appear to have affected the outcome of this election. Trump lost too many close states by too large a margin for fraud to have caused his loss.

“Most of the theories of election misconduct, even if proven, would not change the vote totals enough to overturn the outcome,” writes National Review’s Dan McLaughlin.

Trump, he notes, would have to flip three or four states where he is trailing Biden by tens of thousands of votes and for fairly explicable reasons that have nothing to do with voter fraud—e.g., Trump’s under-performance with suburban voters.

“There is no precedent for anything like this,” McLaughlin observes,

requiring a shift of over 47,000 votes to change the outcomes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin and send the election to the House, or over 74,000 to flip Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

The margin in Michigan alone is a daunting 146,137 votes, a far cry from the 537-vote margin in Florida in 2000.

Trump and his toadies are exaggerating the extent to which voting fraud was a problem in the election.

“People will not accept this rigged election!” tweeted President Trump. “Watch for massive ballot-counting abuse,” he added.

“I don’t care what state you’re in, bellowed Lou Dobbs, “this computer voting system is wide open to fraud and intervention.”

Of course, it is one thing to acknowledge the reality of voter fraud. It is quite another thing altogether to insist that voter fraud was so widespread and rampant that it “rigged” the election.

There is simply no evidence to support this charge. The New York Times, for instance,

contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had evidence of illegal voting.

Officials in 45 states, [both Democrats and Republicans], responded directly to the Times. For four of the remaining states, the Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments from secretaries of state.

None reported any major voting issues [emphasis added].

Nonetheless, all allegations of voter fraud should be thoroughly investigated and, if found to have merit, prosecuted under the law. This is important because it will help deter voter fraud in the future and help preserve the public’s faith in our democracy.

To investigate and expose voter fraud is not to “attack democracy.” To the contrary: exposing corruption is the vital and necessary means by which we strengthen our democracy and restore the public’s faith in our political and electoral institutions.

We have ample time to investigate and resolve allegations of voter fraud. States have yet to certify their election results; the Electoral College does not meet until Dec. 14; and the Presidential Inauguration is not until Jan. 20.

Thus the media to the contrary notwithstanding, there is absolutely no need now to declare Biden the president-elect or Trump the president-reelect.

Let the electoral and legal processes run their course. When these processes are completed, we will have a legitimately elected president.

Equally important, partisans on both sides will know that the election was conducted fairly; and that allegations of voter fraud were not ignored and swept under the rug.

To the contrary: such allegations, they will know, were taken seriously and addressed properly.

In the meantime, Trump and his team should work cooperatively with Biden and his team to ensure a smooth transfer of power should Biden be declared the president-elect.

This means sharing critical national intelligence and providing access to information and officials, so that a Biden administration is ready and prepared Jan. 20.

Unfortunately, Trump’s team reportedly is refusing to work with Biden’s team until the election outcome is completely and officially resolved. That’s unacceptable, unhelpful, and unAmerican. We the people deserve better from our leaders.

The bottom line: voter fraud is a real problem that must be uncovered, exposed, and addressed; however, it simply does not explain Biden’s apparent victory in the 2020 presidential election.

And partisans on both sides do the nation a great disservice when they either pretend that voter fraud doesn’t exist or grossly exaggerate its electoral significance.

The good news is that we have the legal mechanisms in place to fairly address and adjudicate allegations of voter fraud and other electoral irregularities—and we have plenty of time to let the legal process work and run its course before either Trump or Biden are inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021.

Legitimacy. This is important because public faith in our political and electoral institutions depends on free and fair elections. And free and fair elections, of course, depend on holding officials accountable to the rule of law and prosecuting those who break the law.

The American people are watching, and they expect and deserve no less.

Feature photo credit: WKYT.

Kamala Harris as VP Shatters the Myth of the ‘Glass Ceiling’

Kamala Harris as VP Shatters the Myth of the ‘Glass Ceiling’

By John R Guardiano on November 8, 2020

Kamala Harris’s apparent election as vice president is historic. However, it does not represent a shattering of the “glass ceiling,” because the glass ceiling is a political myth pushed by progressives for overtly political ends.

If, as appears likely, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) has been elected Vice President of the United States, it is, indeed, historic and should be recognized as such. But can we please dispense of the tired and shopworn notion that her election breaks some “barrier” and “glass ceiling”?

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the United States of America, there is no real “barrier” stopping women from professional achievement.

The “glass ceiling” is a political myth pushed by “progressive” or left-wing activists whose real aim is to increase the government’s control over our lives—ostensibly to end discrimination and eliminate social and economic disparities between men and women.

Female Representation. But it is 2020, not 1920 or 1820. Today in the United States, women are well represented in all walks of life and even predominant in some fields, such as pharmaceutical science (61 percent), medical and life sciences (71 percent), and public relations (63 percent).

“Women account for roughly 40% of the country’s physicians and surgeons, up from about 26% in the late 1990s,” reports Quartz “A full 57% of college degrees awarded in 2018 were given to women, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”

Women outnumber men in law school. Three Supreme Court Justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Amy Coney Barrett—are women.

President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations (Nikki Haley) was a woman. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush had female Secretaries of State (Susan Rice and Condoleezza Rice, respectively).

There are a record number of women—26 senators and 101 representatives—serving in Congress.

The “glass ceiling,” if it ever existed, was shattered a long time ago. Yet, numerous commentators have been falling over themselves to laud Harris’s election as a “breakthrough” achievement that lays waste to yet another “barrier.”

Harris herself, moreover, lauded Vice President Biden for having the “audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exists in our country: [by] select[ing] a woman as his vice president.”

Admittedly, this is good politics, but it’s also complete nonsense unsupported by any empirical evidence.

Disparities. It is true that women often earn less than men and that disparities still exist. But this is not because of “discrimination” and “sexism.”

Instead, it is because of professional and career choices that women sometimes make, which limit their time in the workforce and constrain their earnings and professional advancement.

For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau:

Female attorneys work full-time, year-round on average more than the average for all working women (82 percent vs. 63 percent), but less than male attorneys (85 percent).

They also are more likely to work for the government and less likely to be self-employed than their male colleagues.

All this contributes to differences in median earnings between women and men, with a female-to-male earnings ratio for full-time, year-round attorneys of 76 percent, lower than the 80 percent average across all occupations.

As a wiseman once said, “facts are stubborn things.”

“Equal pay for women has been the law of the land for more than a half-century,” with a wide array of legal remedies available to litigants, writes Gerald Skoning in the Wall Street Journal.

Consequently, no one can legitimately claim women earn less than men for the same work.

Pay “disparities” between men and women generally reflect other factors such as interrupting a career to raise children, the types of jobs men and women on average choose, the type of education they have (sociology vs. engineering), etc.

Politics and History. So yes, the election of a female vice president is an historic milestone that should be duly noted. But let’s not pretend that Harris’s election represents some triumph over a genuine barrier—legal, cultural or otherwise—that she had to “break through” and “overcome.”

To the contrary: Harris surely benefited from the fact she is a woman and a woman of color, as they say, from a big and diverse state. Would Biden, after all, have selected her as his VP if she were a male senator representing, say, Montana?

Of course not.

Harris, remember, flopped in a big way during the Democratic primaries, where she failed to garner popular support—even amongst black women, who much preferred Joe Biden.

Antiquated Myth. Let us, then, retire the antiquated notion of a “glass ceiling” or “barrier” that women must “overcome.” This is a progressive political myth designed for overtly left-wing political ends.

Women today are full and equal citizens, with full and equal rights and opportunities; and the glass ceiling was shattered long, long ago. Good riddance.

Feature photo credit: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) courtesy of Doug Mills, New York Times, published in the San Antonio Express-News.

Trump Lost Arizona—and the Presidency—in 2020 When, in 2015, He Gratuitously Attacked John McCain

Trump Lost Arizona—and the Presidency—in 2020 When, in 2015, He Gratuitously Attacked John McCain

By John R Guardiano on November 4, 2020

Trump won Arizona in 2016, but lost the state in 2020, and it looks like this loss has cost him the presidency. Yet, Arizona was eminently winnable for Trump—if only he hadn’t made an enemy of John McCain.

As I write (at 1:30 p.m. EST, the day after the election), there are six states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina—that are in neither the Trump nor Biden column; and so, we still do not know who will be president Jan. 20, 2021.

However, barring a major counting error or other surprise, we know that Trump has lost one important state—Arizona, with 11 electoral votes—that he won in 2016. And Trump’s loss of Arizona could well be the reason Trump is denied a second term.

Electoral Math. Indeed, Trump could win Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) while losing Michigan (16), Wisconsin (10), and Nevada (6), and still win reelection—but only if he retains Arizona.

Otherwise, Trump falls an excruciating three electoral votes short of the requisite 270 needed to win.

This interactive map from 270towin.com spells it all out:

Arizona matters because I believe Trump will win Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Noth Carolina while losing Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Which means that, because he lost Arizona, Trump has lost the presidency.

Yet, Arizona was completely winnable. Although it has become more competitive in recent years, the state has voted Democrat for president only one time since 1948, and that was in 1996, when Bill Clinton was cruising to reelection against a lackluster Republican opponent (Sen. Majority leader Bob Dole, R-Kansas) just as the Internet-fueled economic boom was heating up.

And why did Trump lose Arizona? In large part because he stupidly made an enemy of the late John McCain.

Political Feud. Enmity between the two men dates back to 2015, when Trump said that McCain is “not a war hero… because he was captured” by the North Vietnamese during a bombing mission over Hanoi.

This was a stupid and wrong-headed attack. McCain, after all, spent five-and-a-half heroic years as a prisoner of war in the “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was tortured and often placed in solitary confinement.

All Americans owe McCain a debt of gratitude for his courageous wartime service on behalf of our nation. Trump should have said as much and moved on.

Instead, he lashed out at McCain. As a result, McCann’s wife, Cindy McCain, agreed to be featured in Biden campaign commercials that figured prominently in Arizona.

https://twitter.com/marklevinshow/status/1323843582369894400?s=20

https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1323844269124313088

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1323850146069860353?s=20

Political Lessons. Trump’s loss of Arizona and its 11 critical electoral votes reminds us that in politics, as in sports, the team that makes the fewest mistakes—even if less talented—typically wins. And the team that is more focused and self-disciplined typically makes the fewest mistakes.

Trump, unfortunately, is the antithesis of focused and self-disciplined. Consequently, he made a major mental error by gratuitously going after McCain. That cost Trump Arizona, and, it looks like, a second term.

Feature photo credit: CNN.

Joe Biden Is No Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. His Administration Will Be Much More Radical and Much, Much Worse.

Joe Biden Is No Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. His Administration Will Be Much More Radical and Much, Much Worse.

By John R Guardiano on October 31, 2020

America survived Bill Clinton and Barack Obama because the Democratic Party then was center-left. But America likely will not survive Joe Biden because the Democratic Party has become radicalized and is now a “progressive” or socialist party.

Many center-right voters who don’t like Donald Trump’s obnoxious personality and unpresidential behavior are thinking about voting for Joe Biden. Here’s why, and here’s why that would be a serious mistake.

Point. Their thinking goes like this: America survived Bill Clinton; we survived Barack Obama; and we’ll survive Joe Biden. Clinton and Obama were liberal Democrats, after all, and yet, Republicans lived to fight another day.

The republic did not end. Free-market capitalism endured. America remained free and prosperous. Surely, the same thing will happen if Biden is elected president:

Democrats and Republicans will have their policy disagreements, of course; and sometimes one party or the other will win; but we’ll return, at long last, to a state of political normalcy.

Quiet. “The first thing you’ll notice [in a Biden presidency] is the quiet,” writes New York Times columnist David Brooks.

There will be no disgraceful presidential tweets and no furious cable segments reacting to them on Inauguration Day…

It will become immediately clear that in a Biden era politics will shrink back down to normal size. It will be about government programs, not epic wars about why my sort of people are morally superior to your sort of people…

It will also become immediately clear that in a highly ideological age, America will be led by a man who is not ideological.

“I’m sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn’t imagine crossing over to support a Democrat,” said former Ohio Governor John Kasich, Republican, during his Democratic National Convention speech endorsing Biden.

They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don’t believe that. Because I know the measure of the man—reasonable, faithful, respectful. And you know, no one pushes Joe around.

Counterpoint. Brooks and Kasich are wrong. The idea that a Biden Presidency would be a garden-variety, center-left Democratic administration is badly mistaken and wishful thinking.

To believe this, you have to ignore all of the political and cultural forces that, in the past decade, have been relentlessly driving the Democratic Party further and further to the left:

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, George Soros;
Black Lives Matter, reparations, defund the police;
the public option, Medicare for all, amnesty, open borders;
end the filibuster, abolish the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court;
ban fracking, end fossil fuels, enact the Green New Deal;
D.C. statehood, Citizens United, Modern Monetary Theory;
Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, the 1619 project, et al.

In short, the Democratic Party today is far more radical than it was when Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 and significantly more radical than it was when Barack Obama ran for reelection eight years ago in 2012.

Clinton ran for election as a “New Democrat” from the South, and he eschewed the liberal fundamentalism that had dominated his party for more than a generation.

Obama, meanwhile, campaigned as a non-ideological Democrat who rejected labels while espousing “hope and change.”

More importantly, Clinton and Obama ran in a Democratic Party whose center of gravity was well to the right of where it is now.

Today, by contrast, the intellectual ferment and activist energy lies entirely within the “progressive” or socialist wing of the party.

Biden is not a socialist, but that doesn’t matter: He is a weak and physically frail politician who will accommodate the progressive left because he knows no other way and has no other choice. As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board explains:

What evidence is there today that Mr. Biden will restrain his increasingly radical party? Across his long career he has been the consummate party man, floating right or left with the political tides.

As a presidential candidate this year he has put no particular policy imprint on the Democratic Party—not one. The party has put its stamp on him.

Little wonder, then, that Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and “The Squad” are among Biden’s most fervent supporters. They know he will do their bidding.

Biden, in fact, has tacked left since winning his party’s nomination. Thus last summer he signed a 110-page “unity” manifesto with Bernie Sanders.

The manifesto “envisions the socialism of an all-encompassing welfare state, with virtually every need a right, and every right guaranteed by taxpayer funding,” writes economist (and former Texas Senator) Phil Gramm.

Sanders “may not sit in the Oval Office next year,” notes the Journal, but Mr. Biden will be implementing Bernie’s dreams.”

If the Republicans controlled Congress, or even one branch of the Congress, they might serve as a useful check on a Biden presidency that is otherwise preordained to swerve sharply left. But the reality is that if Biden captures the White House, the Democrats almost certainly will gain control of the Senate.

Our politics have become too polarized for much split-ticket voting. And the Dems are expected to retain control of the House of Representatives.

Clinton and Obama, by contrast, had to contend with a Republican-controlled Congress for six of the eight years that they each were president.

The bottom line: if Biden wins, his administration will be staffed by hardcore progressives working in tandem with the socialist left, both in and out of Congress, to pursue what the Journal rightly calls the most left-wing policy agenda in decades.

Irreversible Socialist Change. Bad public policies, of course, typically can be changed or reversed legislatively by future presidents and future congresses. But if Biden and the Dems take over, that may not be an option.

That is because the progressive left is hellbent on instituting structural “reforms” that will make it impossible for a future Republican president or congress to reverse their radical policy agenda.

D.C. statehood, for instance, would add two very liberal senators to the Senate, thereby giving Democrats an all-but-guaranteed lock on that legislative body for at least a generation.

Ending the filibuster would mean that, unlike in our nation’s past, major reform legislation no longer would require bipartisan support and cooperation.

Instead, the Dems could steamroll the Republicans while enacting new and costly tax-and-spend redistribution schemes, including reparations.

Packing the Supreme Court with “progressive” justices who legislate from the bench would allow Democrats to create new and permanent “rights” for favored classes and reciprocal political and financial obligations for less favored and ostensibly “privileged” Americans.

Repealing Citizens United would pave the way for the worst legislative and regulatory assault on free speech in American history.

Unprecedented. That is why this election is not like past elections; and it is why electing Biden as president would yield a very different result than what happened when Clinton and Obama were elected. This time, to a real and worrisome extent, America itself is at risk.

Indeed, when the Democrats are done, there likely will be no going back: A dynamic, diverse and freewheeling commercial republic will be replaced by a sclerotic and slow-growing statist democracy with fewer jobs, less opportunity, and more bureaucratic constraints.

Basic Constitutional liberties, such as freedom of speech, religious worship, and the right to bear arms will be under sustained assault. And our national memory and understanding of our political inheritance will wither away as the activists who have toppled statues now implement bureaucratic decrees that erase our nation’s history.

A Defeated Nation. Sure, all of this may happen quietly, as Brooks and others hope or expect. There will be no juvenile, cringe-inducing tweets from a President Biden, as there are too often from President Trump.

But the quietude will reflect the dull and subdued resignation of a tired and aging nation burdened with an entitlement state that it cannot long support and lacking the economic dynamism and cultural wherewithal needed to sustain and support its people.

Moreover, far from making politics a less invasive force in our lives, as Brooks hopes, a Biden presidency instead will extend the reach and influence of Washington, D.C. That, after all, is what the Democrats’ progressive base demands: a more assertive, domineering, and activist federal government.

This will be the “new normal” ushered in by the “progressive” or socialist Democrats who will dominate a Biden presidency. Be careful whom you vote for, we just might get it.

Feature Photo Credit: Political twins Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders (Elise Amendola, Associated Press, courtesy of Citizens Times).