The modern Democratic party has no idea how badly it needs Joe Biden. Not just because President Trump could be defeated by a center-left populist, but because American liberalism is at a crossroads. Love or hate Donald Trump, his presidency has exposed the duality of modern liberalism. The very same liberals, who talked up equality and inclusion to elect President Obama, rejected fair elections and the presumption of innocence to stop President Trump.
Even if his is a one-term presidency, Donald Trump will be as significant to our democracy as Barack Obama. Obama proved Democrats could ignore race to nominate America’s first black president. Donald Trump proved Democrats could ignore constitutional principles to defeat America’s first change president. It is a disturbing duality within America’s liberal party.
A core value of liberalism is the presumption of innocence. It is the most consequential right in our free nation, where an all-powerful government has the burden of proof. In 1966, a liberal Supreme Court in Miranda rightly protected the individual from biased law enforcement. Democrats, to their credit, gave full-throated support to the ideal of presumed innocence – until a true “change” president threatened their agenda. It was then that Obama-Clinton partisans denied Donald Trump his right to a presumption of innocence: spying, leaking and mis-representing chance meetings or tangential associations with Russians.
Trump exposed the dangerous duality of Senate Democrats. They rightly presumed Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was innocent of conspiring with the Russian ambassador at a bagel breakfast and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) was innocent of coordinating with “agents” of the Russian government at a luncheon. Yet, they assumed Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was guilty of colluding with the Russian ambassador during a chance and very public meeting before the election.
Trump also exposed the dangerous duality of Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement leaders. They presumed Barack Obama (D-IL) was innocent of coordinating with Russian President Medvedev in 2012 – even after a hot mic caught him asking Medvedev to “wait until after the election.” Yet, they assumed Carter Page was coordinating with Russia in spite of his voluntarily reporting to the FBI about Russians. It would be a crime if James Comey (FBI) and Sally Yeats (DOJ) authorized FISA warrants just because Page was connected to the Trump campaign.
The optics of this duality is especially damaging to Obama-Clinton Democrats, because Republicans – with full control of both chambers in Congress – did not investigate President Obama after he was clearly coordinating with Medvedev. House Democrats have afforded President Trump no such presumption of innocence, even after the Mueller investigation did not result in a grand jury or indictment. This partisan duality is unacceptable to legal experts and average voters alike.
Harvard Law’s Alan Dershowitz is a libertarian Democrat, who voted for Hillary Clinton. However, his constitutional defense of Trump’s presidency has invited the wrath of so-called liberals. Dershowitz rightly cedes to Trump the same executive powers enjoyed by previous presidents by virtue of a legal election. He rightly cites as an abuse of presidential power any meddling by Obama-era officials in the 2016 election or surveillance of the president-elect. How is he wrong?
In a bigger picture, the average voter has a healthy fear of executive power by virtue of IRS audits, passing through Customs, facing the DOJ and FBI, or witnessing EPA and ICE raids on their workplace. Furthermore, most voters did not want the Obama-Clinton machine to protect America from the well-reported “worst” of Donald Trump (i.e. bad-bossing, crude-rude comments, false claims, meandering press conferences, and womanizing). With the Mueller Report now public, only 32 percent of likely voters want the House to investigate President Trump, while most voters (61%) believe congressional Democrats should move on to other issues (source: Rasmussen Reports).
With each passing day, it appears so-called liberals undermined the democratic process (election) and ignored the constitutional outcome (electoral college victory), while claiming to have we the people’s best interests at heart. This duality is exemplified by the made-up “constitutional crisis” that is the outrage du jour with Democrats.
Jimmy Carter (D-GA) rightly created congressional oversight with the Ethics In Government Act of 1978, but reckless Democrats ended that oversight in 1999 (a knee-jerk reaction to oversight by congressional Republicans). In short, there is no constitutional crisis in 2019 when the attorney general exercises the power expressly given to him by Congress in 1999.
In fact, if Democrats had renewed the 1978 statute, Robert Mueller would have reported to Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Congress as an Independent Counsel. The 1978 law was precipitated by Watergate; therefore, it intentionally wanted the attorney general out of the loop. Unfortunately, thanks to Bill Clinton, Democrats allowed the independent-counsel law to expire in 1999.
After watching Ken Starr investigate and Republicans impeach Bill Clinton, Democrats replaced the “independent counsel” reporting to Congress with a “special counsel” reporting to the attorney general. Jerry Nadler knows full well Attorney General Barr has the legal authority to indict OR decline to indict President Trump, because Democrats hoped the DOJ would protect a Democratic president from a Republican Congress. The disturbing duality is that was then, but this is now!
Democrats are at a political crossroads: they should accept their Russiagate defeat. They should unite behind Joe Biden, who should denounce Obama-era apparatchiks (such as James Comey) and condemn conspiracy-pushing Democrats (such as Adam Schiff). He knows liberal duality is political trap because of his #MeToo kerfuffle. Biden is a moderate Democrat that most Americans would trust to replace Donald Trump. In the bigger picture, Democrats need to stick 100% to core American ideals, such as fair elections and the presumption of innocence.