The host’s interview of Justice Neil Gorsuch yesterday should be read and listened to completely and repeatedly – as I am sure today’s interview of J.D. Vance will be. Going into break this question from the host, particularly on the heels of my post yesterday in which I strongly paralleled events in the Democratic Party to the Soviet Union, is worthy of consideration:

But what Tocqueville saw is not really working anymore. People don’t speak up. You talk about the threats to people who do speak up. I don’t know that we can get back to that climate of protection unless and until the courts stand up for individual citizens against this bureaucracy, and in a methodical kind of way. I’m rather pessimistic about this.

It has had me thinking about just how smoothly it has gone for Kamala Harris – almost too smoothly.

The host, as always, planned the interview meticulously, you can always hear his outline. He set up the comment I quoted above a few exchanges earlier by citing a 2016 Peggy Noonan piece, he summarizes this way:

She said Americans are basically either protected, they have assets, resources, they can afford lawyers, they can deal with the federal government, or unprotected.

Justice Gorsuch responds to the host’s Tocqueville reference by noting how people band together to fight the government – and there is therefore hope. To this observer I think everyone has a point, but there is also a response to the overbearing, intrusive and dangerous administrative state that is not being considered in the conversation.

The Soviet Union was, essentially, a protection racket – just like the mob has been known to run. “You don’t want trouble? – then play along with us.” Having, like the host, spent a career, though a non-lawyerly career, dueling with the administrative state I have seen them come at people in a very similar fashion.

Which brings me to the extremely rapid, and far too smooth, rise of Kamala Harris. Justice Gorsuch has noted that some people do band together to fight the extortionists, but even banding together takes a lot of courage, energy and most importantly leadership. The Communist party functioned by destroying any potential oppositional leadership and making joining the extortionists the path of least resistance. They further gilded the lily by making that party stand for all sorts of seemingly wonderful things, like a guaranteed job and housing – maybe it was shoveling manure and living in a hovel, but at least it was guaranteed. They made it feel like joining the Communists Party was banding together.

This entire business with Harris is giving me the same sort of vibe. The closest we have come to hearing any dissent has been the few days it took Barack Obama to hop on the band wagon, and even he never objected in that period. The whole thing just stinks of hidden and unsavory persuasive forces at work. All the while the Democratic Party hides behind this tissue of lily gilding issues like climate change, DEI and the first woman president of color. I fear too many people are Democrats because it is the path of least resistance, and they think they are banding together to fight the monster when all they are actually doing is feeding it.

In the end my post yesterday was about holding the truth when all those about you are participating in lies. We need to start there, we need to see through the lily gilding tissue and recognize what has happened for what it actually is – political thuggery – from Harris and from the administrative state. It is not civil, and it is not good – it is just bullying. When enough people see the truth, then we can band together and speak up.

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