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.