JONATHAN TURLEY: Can democracy survive the ‘defenders of democracy?’
In 2024, the greatest test for our Constitution may be whether it can survive the “Defenders of Democracy.”
Ronald Reagan often said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Today, Reagan’s line cannot compare with the line that sends many of us into a fetal position: “I’m a Democrat and I am here to save democracy.”
The jump scare claim is that unless citizens vote for us, the end of democracy will begin shortly. In 2022, House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told “Fox News Sunday” that “democracy will be ending” if Democrats lost the midterms.
The rhetoric has continued to ramp up with the upcoming election.
From President Joe Biden to a host of progressive politicians and pundits, the 2024 election is all about saving democracy. The public has been told that if the Democrats lose power, citizens will be living in a tyrannical hellscape. Vice President Kamala Harris stated in one interview that 2024 “genuinely could be” the last democratic election in America’s history. Dozens of Democrats have said that democracy will end if Biden is not reelected.
The Washington Post even ran an op-ed titled, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”
Many Americans have tuned out the overheated rhetoric, as shown by Donald Trump’s continuing lead in many polls even after his conviction in Manhattan. The warnings also ignore that our system has checks and balances that protected democracy for centuries as the world’s oldest and most successful constitutional system. These dire predictions would require all three branches to fail in an unprecedented fashion.
While these figures cite the Capitol riot on Jan 6., 2021 as evidence of the pending collapse of democracy, the system worked as designed on that day. Congress refused to be deterred by the riot and virtually every court (including many presided over by Trump-appointed judges) rejected challenges to the election.
The most obvious threats today to the democratic system are coming from the left, not the right.
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