by Paul Dame
Recently, Colorado and then Maine gained national attention as the first two states to remove a candidate from a primary ballot who had otherwise met the requirements of state law. While Colorado has since permitted Trump to remain on the ballot pending court decisions, Maine has not. If nothing changes, an unelected Democrat will have disenfranchised thousands of Maine voters who signed the petition and thousands more who may want to vote for the candidate.
But this is a symptom of a deeper problem with Democrats; they don’t actually trust democracy. They act in a way that demonstrates they believe they know better than the people they govern, and sometimes they have to override the will of voters to do what they think is best. Imagine the hubris required for that Secretary of State to unilaterally eliminate a candidate for a crime that had never been charged or formally accused in court. Even if you think she judged rightly, our entire court system is based on confidence in a fair process. Here, the State of Maine has defied every doctrine of our justice system that we hold dear, undermining our confidence in its outcomes. The candidate did not have an opportunity to face their accuser, was not provided a right to defend themselves, and was not assumed innocent until proven guilty.
The scenario is so morally reprehensible and contrary to broadly-held American ideals that even other elected Democrats in Maine, like Congressman Jared Goldman in Maine’s 2nd district, admitted that despite voting to impeach Trump for insurrection, he did not agree with the abuse of power this Maine Democrat has taken upon herself.
Hopefully, the entire question will be permanently squashed by a Supreme Court that can read the last sentence in the 14th amendment, which makes it clear that the prohibition on insurrectionists can be lifted by a two-thirds vote in Congress. This clearly eliminates any authority a Secretary of State might try to exert because it is not their job to judge the qualifications to serve. That role belongs to Congress alone.
Democrats argue that they must take unprecedented measures to destroy democratic norms because Trump is an unprecedented danger. But this is proven to be a convenient lie by several other actions. Look at their own primary process. Democratic Party leaders in several states are also engaging in a troublesome kind of obstruction that ought to alarm the average Democrat voter. They fear the average person’s choices so much – they are willing to take it away from their own people. The Democrat’s current primary system created establishment-friendly super-delegates so they can prevent regular voters from making too many “mistakes”– as Bernie Sanders knows. But that wasn’t enough control for them this year, so they are pushing for even more. Where will they stop?
In New Hampshire, they took the name of Joe Biden off the ballot and threatened to punish anyone else who put their name on the ballot. Democrats punishing Democrats for running in a democratic election? Aside from being a completely pointless way to run a primary – I can’t imagine a more anti-democratic course of action. Even the name of the guy they want to win isn’t shown on the ballot because if he doesn’t run, he can’t be seen as “losing”. In Florida, the Democratic state party outright canceled their primary. This prevented anyone from not only beating Joe Biden but they wouldn’t even let someone run against him. Just this week, the Massachusetts Democratic Party attempted to disenfranchise their state’s voters by submitting only the name of Joe Biden to appear on the ballot, but not his other nationally recognized opponents. Did anyone notice that Democrats have not held any primary debates either? There are likely many other stories of things happening behind the scenes that never make it to the public. Last fall Robert Kennedy withdrew from the Democratic Primary because he saw an underbelly of barriers and difficulties that would be thrown his way to ensure his failure. So he walked away from the party.
At the end of the day, our Democracy is only as robust as our willingness to defend those ideals – even when we prefer different outcomes. If we allow ourselves to be persuaded to surrender fair and impartial elections because we’re too worried about the demagogue on the other side – we will all lose: Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and others. Democratic primary voters are seeing that now. They will get no other choice but Biden in their primary – even though a majority of them want another choice. Hopefully, they reverse course after this election – especially if they lose. Given the fact that Democrats don’t trust their own people to choose their candidate, it’s no surprise they won’t let us choose our own school, how to heat our homes, what kind of car to drive, or stove to cook on or what kind of straw to drink with. The signs are everywhere that Democrats want to make themselves the only choice any of us are allowed to make.
The author is an Essex Junction resident and chair of the Vermont Republican Party.
Categories: Commentary, Elections, Press Release
Personal thoughts: Remember when the same people who have issues with this wanted Obama taken off the ballot over accusations of foreign birth? Chester A. Arthur had to go through it, too. Nothing new here. Oh, wait, Trump was one of the main forces behind it.
“Oh, wait, Trump was one of the main forces behind it.”
In fairness, and as noted, campaign tactics questioning a candidate’s citizenship have been commonplace, posed by all sorts of people over the years, Democrats and Republicans.
John McCain was questioned, as was Dick Cheney. Even Barry Goldwater was questioned. In Obama’s case, the questions were diverse. And the off-setting explanations were often illusive. According to Factcheck.org, even the SCOTUS weighed in on Obama’s dual citizenship issue.
So, was Trump one of ‘the main forces’ behind the questioning of Obama’s citizenship? He certainly had a significant public platform. But, in my opinion, that he was considered a ‘main force’ here and now is more representative of a current political perception than it is reality. After all, if the SCOTUS isn’t a ‘main force’, what else is?
Please. Per factcheck.org’s own website, they receive funding from:
“Facebook, which provides funding as part of Facebook’s initiative to debunk viral deceptions, and Google, which provided a one-time grant to support our COVID-19 coverage in 2020. Neither corporation seeks nor is given any control over our editorial decisions”.
Yep, they sure sound non-partisan alright.
Further, President Trump is allowed to voice his opinion on whatever topic he chooses, as are you, me, and the rest of the country. Presidents, almost by definition, are a “main force”. They speak for 330M people! Resident Biden is a “main force (or farce, opinions may vary), as much so as President Kennedy, despite the differences in their performance in office.
I happen to believe that Barak Obama (Barry Soetero) is not, in fact, a US citizen, but this has zero to do with what President Trump believes. My opinion is the result of my own research. What Soetero’s citizenship status says now is irrelevant. It’s mis-direction. What matters is whether or not he was even eligible to BE the President of the United States.
My only question is if he’ll make a break for Kenya when (if ever) the heat gets turned up.
Re: ‘please’. That was my point, Robin. Even a progressive, liberal, partisan group like Factcheck didn’t claim Trump was the ‘main force’ behind the questioning of Obama’s citizenship.
Democrats attack democracy head on, in your face, no holds barred with straight-up unconstitutional bills & laws based upon their warped, unconstitutional, Marxist ideologies.
Republicans attack democracy through the backdoor, sowing discord within their own party, representing themselves as conservatives whilst operating as reprobates. The GOP is attacking democracy by enabling said unconstitutionality, being complaisant at best & intricately involved at worst. The GOP is attacking democracy in refraining from voraciously opposing the destruction that encircles their nation, and in attacking democracy through their unmitigated refusal to utilize the rule of law and our sacrosanct founding documents to eradicate this treasonous & tyrannical & diabolical overthrow of this Constitutional Republic until it is so defeated it can never be resurrected again.
On the national front, why hasn’t Mayorkas or Biden been IMPEACHED? Why is the international border not CLOSED? Why is Fauci not IMPRISONED? Why are we at the brink of WW III? Why didn’t the US Supreme Court take up the case as presented for election fraud? Why hasn’t Communist China been held accountable for their role in the murder of tens of millions worldwide? Why, Mr. Dame? As a proverbial insider to the workings of the RNC, perhaps you can clue us in. And if not, why not?
What’s up with Maine ? If you’d have told me that Maine would try to stifle the legal democratic process of elections before Vermont, I’d have told you you were two nuts short of a fruitcake. The sooner Supreme Court rules on this the better for everyone.
Per the Merriam-Webster dictionary –
Democratic: A) Of, relating to, or favoring democracy. B) Relating to, appealing to, or available to the broad masses of the people.
Thus, the term “Democratic Party” makes no sense at all, because the current members of this Party A) Do not favor democracy, they favor fascism, and B) Do not operate in a fair, “democratic” way. Put another way, “democracy” implies everyone’s opinion gets heard, not shouted down, mocked, censored, flagged, de-platformed, etc etc etc. Sound like any legislative body you know of?
So let’s please stop using the term “Democratic Party”, as it is currently not democratic in any dense of the word. The proper term is “Democrat Party”, i.e, a collection of Democrats.
Words carry meaning, and the subliminal implications of the word “Democrat” (the opposite of “democratic”) are just one more way you’ve been programmed by Project Mockingbird.
Open your eyes. Why do you think they call it TV “Programming”?
tel// lie/// vision///had enough yet///
Score card ready – let’s see how many cross the party line (invisible as it is) to ensure the status quo. Let the games begin!
Dame has been choosing teammates for this game years now. He must have been a ball of fire in his high school gym class.
Referring to Mr. Trump, “The candidate did not have an opportunity to face their accuser, was not provided a right to defend themselves, and was not assumed innocent until proven guilty.
In the words of Daffy Duck, “Aha! Pronoun trouble!”
Aha… yes, Tyler – ‘himself v. ‘themselves’. But grammar aside, do you agree that the point made is still valid? After all, I have enough trouble keeping my own grammar in line in this extemporaneous format, let alone point out the grammar of others. Isn’t it the substance and context of the comment that’s important? Before we know it, we’re going to be limiting what others can say, not because of improper invectives, but because of poor grammar and composition. Just sayin’.
Hi Jay;
Thanks for the opportunity.
It’s analogous to the “Democrat party” discussion in this thread. Subtleties of language can be telling.
In this case, Mr. Dame was finally forced to mention Mr. Trump by name, something I noticed he would not do in previous essays. So now Mr. Dame will not, or does not refer to Mr. Trump as with “his” or “himself” despite having impeccable grammar in the rest of his piece.
In the course of my candidacy, as part of VTDigger’s questionnaire, they asked me, “What are your pronouns?” And I responded that they are aware that among the first orders of colonization and conquest is the destruction of the language and culture of those being displaced.
(They also asked about my sexual preferences, and I responded, “None of your damn business.” Neither of those question/answers were published, BTW.)
I leave it up to people to contemplate it on their own; but I think this pronoun trouble is intentionally confusing and an indirect way of denying Mr. Trump his masculinity (which is a huge part of his appeal) as well as his “agency” as a sovereign INDIVIDUAL and CITIZEN who was denied his rights of due process.
Hey Tyler, yes, I get it. And you know I haven’t been a fan of Mr. Dame. But this missive is somewhat out of character for him. Not only does Dame appear to be less critical of Trump than usual, he’s expending significant effort to justify Trump’s inclusion on the ballot.
Yes, that may be a pragmatic realization that momentum of the presidential election continues to expand in Trumps favor. But as the ancient proverb explains, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. It’s yet another example of the benefits in the free enterprise environment espoused by Milton Friedman. “It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”
We must all be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The artfully deployed dagger is much harder to detect than a broadsword swung in anger.
“The true enemy of America is the Republican Party surprisingly. The Democrats will always complain, grift, cheat and gleefully ignore the law. Who will stop them? In a real two-party system, it would be the Republicans, but they are weak, milquetoast losers who do nothing but talk”. – James Woods
“The enemy is already here”. – Dan Bongino
I love it when you hear people talking about democracy. Every time I hear a Commiecrat use the term “our democracy” I swap that out to “our power” in their statement. They never talk about a constitutional republic or our republic or the constitution, unless it favors them. They never mention the Bill of Rights.
If Joe Biden really got 81 million votes in the 2020 election, then why would th Commiecrats try so hard to keep Trump off the ballot and indite him four times.
With nearly ironfisted control over popular entertainment, Burbank, Hollywood and even Nashville, with ownership of virtually every major newspaper or magazine, with their ideology infecting every professional organization and trade guild from the American Bar Association to the American Library Association, and with near-absolute dominion over education at all levels – the Authoritarian Left STILL knows they have to cheat to win elections. I find that encouraging.
grammar///stop using a fifty word statement when ten words are enough/// very tiring to read all those extra words
Take a nap and come back refreshed and ready to take on standardized English usage and punctuation. No one is interested in deciphering postmodern claptrap.
my biggest problem is the crazy people that went along with the stupid lock downs./// the damage is very clear in some of these postings
claptrap ///pretention nonsense /// the jury is still out on this one./// but the facts are clear.///this is more fun than the loggers protest.//
when we talk about daggers and swords/// a.17 hmr placed in the eye of a moose will do more damage than a 3006 in the rear quarter
The most powerful gun in the world does not make up for lack of accuracy.
1st page of US Navy Gunnersmate Manual
must make full disclosure/// gregory mannarino/// came up with statement/// tel //// lie /// vision/// i am sure you all know who he is///