Though Democrats are endlessly prattling on about “norms” and “democracy,” it is often unclear what aspects of the constitutional order they actually support.
This week, for example, Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated her support for suspending the legislative filibuster so that Democrats, should they eke out a slim Senate majority, can overturn thousands of state laws and force the entire country to legalize taxpayer-subsidized, late-term abortions on demand.
It is, of course, true that the filibuster isn’t in the Constitution. In many ways, however, it is one of the last remaining tools upholding a semblance of constitutional order. Yet, to most contemporary Democrats, the 60-vote threshold to cut off debate is an antiquated tool that facilitates “minority rule” — by which they mean “federalism.”
Which makes sense. Democrats are keen on empowering narrow, fleeting left-wing majorities cramming through wide-ranging generational “reform” bills without any consensus, as they did with Obamacare and the Inflation Reduction Act. They know well that once a massive entitlement or regulatory program is passed, it will be virtually impossible to roll back.
You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to understand there’s no version of the founding that envisioned this kind of governance. Then again, the modern Democrat is a consequentialist who doesn’t concern himself with neutral principles. Imagine, if you can, what the world would look like if former President Donald Trump announced he was going to blow up the filibuster using a one-vote Senate majority and then cram through a national limit on abortion. Republicans would be accused of acting like fascistic ghouls, and the media would have a thermonuclear meltdown. It would be 1939 Germany all over again.
Democrats play Calvinball on an All-Star level.
Worse, Democrats have targeted virtually every institution that makes “democracy” tenable in a truly diverse and sprawling nation that is home to hundreds of millions of people. Because if forcing red states to adopt maximalist abortion laws is important enough to sink long-standing checks on federal power, you better believe it won’t be the last exception to the rule.
For one thing, Republicans can’t be expected to play by a different set of governing guidelines. For another, the Left seems to believe every policy position it takes is fundamental to preserving “democracy.” The exemptions would be endless.
Former President Barack Obama, you’ll remember, offered nearly identical justifications for suspending the filibuster when pushing an unconstitutional “voting rights bill.” At the funeral of John Lewis, Obama said the filibuster, first used in 1837 to oppose a national bank charter, was a “Jim Crow relic.” Which is weird because, in 2005, Obama warned that eliminating the filibuster would be an unpatriotic attack on foundational American ideals.
They do this all the time, of course, without a hint of self-reflection, much less an explanation.
Indeed, 30 Democrats, including Kamala Harris, signed a letter praising the filibuster as an imperative tool in maintaining the agency of the “world's greatest deliberative body." In 2018, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) argued that abolishing the filibuster “would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers.” When Joe Biden became president in 2020, Durbin became one of the leading advocates of overturning the filibuster.
Why? Because democracy was on the line.
Some of you may be too young to recall that even judicial votes are dictated by a simple Senate majority because Harry Reid blew up the 60-vote threshold in 2013. Reid, perhaps under the impression that Washington would be run by Democrats forever, failed to heed his own warning that weakening the filibuster would “destroy the very checks and balances our Founding Fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government.”
Let’s face it: That’s the point these days. It’s not just about the naked hypocrisy. It’s about republic-destroying norm-breaking. “Reforming” the filibuster is part of a broader effort to create a powerful, highly centralized state. Fortuitously for the country, Reid’s cynical weakening of Senate norms helped create one of the most constitutionally conscious Supreme Courts in modern history. It is perhaps the only institution inhibiting state overreach these days, which is why Democrats have been busy delegitimizing and now want to pack the court and transform it into another malleable partisan institution. Harris included.
The other institution somewhat tempering a direct democracy is the Electoral College. Yet, left-wing pundits are already whining about the undemocratic nature of that institution as well. It is always confusing to me when someone writes to complain that the Electoral College doesn’t align with the “popular vote,” as if this wasn’t the entire point of the enterprise. If the two always harmonized, we wouldn’t need it.
Then again, you may remember some Democrats worrying about the “ House popular vote ” and “ Senate popular vote ” — both, which, like the presidential “popular vote,” are not real things. The Senate was created as a countermajoritarian institution. Now that leftists believe they have the upper hand, they are increasingly perplexed by the fact that Wyoming and California have the same number of Senators.
You know, it’s called the United States for a reason.
Every time Democrats threaten to destroy a norm, they contend that Republicans would do it if they had the chance. While the GOP is hardly innocent, this is rarely the case. Republicans had numerous occasions to blow up the legislative filibuster and never did, including in 2017-18 when the GOP ran Washington, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), even after being pressured by Trump, refused to do it.
When it comes to executive abuse, Trump, who makes tons of grandiose promises that lay far outside the president’s purview, is a mere piker compared to his predecessor and successor. There is a growing movement among progressive politicians and intellectuals , sometimes referred to as “popular constitutionalism,” that would allow Democrats to ignore the courts whenever they choose. It’s no accident that Harris promised to confiscate guns via an executive order like some kind of dictator. Or why Biden keeps ignoring the high court and unilaterally “forgives” loans.” Or that Democratic senators implore their president to declare national emergencies that would empower the White House to run the entire economy through a massive administrative state.
But let’s set aside the Left’s problems for Article I-III of the Constitution. Here’s a thought experiment: How many contemporary Democrats would support swapping out, say, the 10th Amendment and replacing it with one that made abortion a right? One assumes most would. I won’t even ask about the Second Amendment, but how about the First Amendment? Do you think the free exercise clause would make it out of committee hearing if Democrats were in charge? What part of the Constitution do Democrats, who now support the state monitoring of “disinformation,” hold in high regard?
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Perhaps Harris’s position on the filibuster is a cynical play for votes. What’s become undeniable, however, is that counter-constitutionalism is being normalized on the Left. Democrats want to get rid of the Electoral College so that a few giant urban areas can run the executive branch. They want to get rid of the filibuster so they can unilaterally transform the nation. When they don’t have congressional majorities, they want (their) presidents to rule by fiat. And many now want to pack the Supreme Court to make sure no one will stop them.
There are numerous ways to describe this brand of governance, but none of them have anything to do with American norms or democracy.
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