As we face a very contentious election season next year, I'd like to end 2023 on a positive note. American Democracy is actually very strong, despite the bedwetting predictions of Joe Biden and partisan Democrats and Never Trumpers like Liz Cheney.
You see, they would have you believe that if Trump is elected, he and an army of supporters will march into Washington, DC and disband the House and the Senate and declare himself America's first dictator, wiping out all of the patriotic civil servants who stand in his way.
Liz Cheney and her ilk believe Trump will never leave power and appoint himself American Dictator if he is reelected, as if the decision is his to make. In the meantime, Biden continues leveraging the pop-history drama set by his favorite sycophant historians.
"I'm running because democracy is at stake," Biden repeatedly tells his wealthy donors, warning them that, "make no mistake: Democracy is on the ballot."
Last week, he declared it was "self-evident" that Trump was an "insurrectionist," putting his predecessor in the same company as actual American Confederates like Jefferson Davis. In Biden's mind, he is the last lion of the Senate who was called upon by the people to single-handedly save the fundamental character of the United States.
Next week, on January 6th, he and Vice President Kamala Harris will recycle their sanctimonious narrative that the January 6th riots were a bigger threat to American democracy than the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Supreme Court refused to take up his case, even though he hand-selected three of them and tilted the balance of the court in his favor. In the end, Trump was forced to accept the results of the election — despite his best efforts to prove it was rigged.
Now on the outside, Trump is now arguing that Biden is a bigger threat to Democracy.
“He’s been weaponizing government against his political opponents like a Third World political tyrant,” he argued earlier in December.
The unusually zealous prosecution of Trump by Biden's Justice Department, which kicked into high gear after he announced his plan to run for reelection, suggests Trump might have a point. But now, Trump can make his case to the voters as he faces a very real scenario even as he could be convicted on the campaign trail.
Trump's fears of rogue American courts trying to keep him off the ballot should be tempered by the Supreme Court, where Constitutional originalists are in the majority.
Despite everyone's concerns, let's participate in a presidential election, shall we? In 2024 let the voters vote, let the counters count, and let every state and every town do their best to prove the integrity of their elections.
We're in a very interesting year where both Trump and Biden each had a term as president to show voters how they would run the country. Now we get to choose which one will lead our country for the next four years: We the People participating in a strong American democracy.
Charlie Spiering can be reached at: Charlie.Spiering@gmail.com
