Democrats are losing their grip on reality. They assume the rest of America is on their carousel. We are not. Senators Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), former an avowed socialist, latter fending off a primary challenge from his left, have become demagogues.
A demagogue uses chicanery, fear, prejudice, desire, avarice, and hyperbole to manipulate people. The demagogue disdains dispassionate truth, rational argument, the comeback that says: Sorry, untrue. At times, irony creeps into the conversation.
We are at that point in America today, when leading senators throw down, shamelessly breaking glass, insulting colleagues because they refuse to smash a 150-year-old tradition – the filibuster, or for standing by the 10th Amendment, or for defending voting integrity and states’ rights.
Senator Sanders last week personalized attacks – about the 20th time he has done so – against two US Senate colleagues, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), claiming they imperiled the Republic by opposing plans to destroy the filibuster, refusing to beat Republicans by burning down the old tradition – for “voting rights.”
Here is part of the irony. You see, the first bill Democrats wanted to ram through without the filibuster, which only ends with a 60-member cloture vote, aimed to eviscerate state laws passed in 2021 insisting on election integrity, voter identification, no ballot harvesting, and no cheats.
Once the first bill federalizing elections was rammed through – on one vote – the old filibuster would breathe no more, dead, no matter what got said. As the Wall Street Journal noted, that was like saying not to worry, as Democrats were only pulling one brick from the Hoover Dam. Death to the filibuster would be swift.
The irony only gets worse. Beyond killing assurance of deliberation and killing the right of states to conduct elections fairly, the attempted Democrat trick would allow mass power concentration, bills packing the Supreme Court to eroding rights, all on one vote.
Perhaps the most glaring irony was not Sanders’ words but words from the esteemed New York Senator, Mr. Schumer. Intended or not, they sent shivers through many Americans. The filibuster guarantees the upper chamber actions are “deliberative,” not kneejerk. It assures the Constitution’s spirit is honored, even if not a constitutional provision. It is often used.
Said Sanders, after insulting Manchin in his constituency and watching leftists trail Sinema into a bathroom stall: “As the voting rights bill finally comes to the floor … there is only one vote which will really matter … will Manchin and Sinema vote with the GOP and let the bill die?”
Recall the “voting rights” bill is a voting rights emasculation bill, not something most want. Manchin and Sinema are Senators of character who have explained their views. No matter.
Said Schumer, the same Senator who obliquely threatened the Supreme Court they would “pay” if they reversed Roe: “Make no mistake, the United States Senate will — for the first time this Congress — debate voting rights legislation … an issue as vital to the beating heart of our democracy ….”
The language caught many short. Here was a Senator who does not want to save the life of a child with a beating heart, from a state that legalized killing a child at birth, who cloaks himself in talk of the Republic’s “beating heart,” pretending that is a voting rights bill federalizing and killing states’ rights!
In short, a new age of demagoguery is upon us, return to irony within irony, layers of hyperbole, and fictional narratives sold as truth, tables pounded with mock indignance. One can get frustrated or – better yet – get some popcorn, and settle in for theater of the absurd.