Members of the legal community are familiar with the adage: If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.<\/p>\n
A more terse truism might also apply to campaigning politicians: If your record is laudable, pound your record; if your record is inferior, pound your opponent.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden has adopted the latter strategy. Having presided over the worst inflation in 40 years; an utter fiasco at the southern border; soaring utility costs for average Americans; trillions in new debt; skyrocketing annual deficits; a massive expansion of the regulatory state; and a world engulfed in conflict, Biden \u2014 his poll numbers at record lows \u2014 has opted to change the subject and paint himself as an ardent defender of democracy against the nefarious would-be dictator Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America\u2019s sacred cause?\u201d the president said this month during an address at Valley Forge. \u201cThis is not rhetorical, academic or hypothetical. Whether democracy\u2019s still America\u2019s \u2018sacred cause\u2019 is the most urgent question of our time, and it\u2019s what the 2024 election is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went on to say, \u201cThe defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency. America, as we begin this election year, we must be clear, democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n
No need to read between the lines. The theme for Biden and Democrats this election year is crystal clear: We have a dismal record of governance so let\u2019s petrify swing voters by arguing that the United States \u2014 embodying the vital concept of democracy \u2014 risks collapse if Trump is again sent to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll leave aside the absurdity of the premise that democracy is endangered if a controversial candidate is duly elected through the democratic process or, for that matter, the question of how it serves democracy to allow unelected state officials to keep disfavored presidential hopefuls off the ballot. For this over-the-top progressive hand-wringing to be an accurate assessment, virtually every institutional check and balance in the country would have to acquiesce or fail.<\/p>\n
How would Trump carry out this fiendish plot? Would Congress and the vice president stand down and go along? How about the entire federal judiciary and the Supreme Court? Would career civil servants be on board? The military? Governors? State lawmakers? The American people?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no indication that any of these checks \u2014 let alone all of them \u2014 would falter. In fact, recent history suggests the opposite.<\/p>\n
Say what you will about the Jan. 6, 2021, fiasco, but the guardrails held. Vice President Mike Pence did his duty, those who participated in illegal activity have been prosecuted, and Biden assumed office without delay. Meanwhile, three years later, Trump is tied up in various legal imbroglios.<\/p>\n
Yet we\u2019re supposed to believe that, if Americans toss Biden to the curb, Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal observes, \u201cwe could be North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s term most closely resembles Jimmy Carter\u2019s tenure in the White House. It\u2019s no coincidence that Carter in the 1980 election also desperately sought to deflect attention from his competence by warning voters that the election of his GOP opponent, Ronald Reagan, would push the country closer to nuclear war and represent a \u201cserious threat\u201d to the \u201csafety and the security and the peace of our nation and of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump behaved shamefully on Jan. 6, and that\u2019s obviously fair game for criticism during a campaign. Whether American voters want a return of his daily drama remains to be seen. But the notion that Trump will seize authoritarian powers if he is elected is a fantasy concocted by Democratic strategists trembling over Biden\u2019s abysmal standing with voters.<\/p>\n
\u00a92024 Las Vegas Review-Journal. Visit reviewjournal.com.<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a> <\/p>\n KeyWords:: e2061301-892d-4a8f-8c22-f7252b536547 Members of the legal community are familiar with the adage: If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table. A more terse truism might also apply to campaigning politicians: If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90462,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90461\/revisions\/90462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nBC-DEMOCRACY-EDITORIAL:LV
\nBC DEMOCRACY EDITORIAL LV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"