Anybody who actually buys the Democrat Party line that they want to defend "democracy," preserve "norms," and prevent "fascism" is a credulous fool. 

You don't have to be stupid to be a fool, although it certainly helps. You just need to short-circuit your rational faculties with an irrational impulse, such as an emotional attachment to a party, a cause, or a hatred for something. If the thoughts never get filtered by rational judgments, it's impossible to say whether the person's reasoning abilities are up to snuff. That's why very smart people can say or do very dumb things. 

Of course, AOC isn't very smart, so there's that...

Jonathan Turley used to be considered center-left, but the "left" has moved so far that he now appears to be practically a fossilized antediluvian conservative. He still clings to the idea that justice and the law should be blind and that politics in a Republic should be conducted on an even playing field. 

He is the living embodiment of the Colin Wright cartoon. The guy in the middle who watched the Overton Window shift so dramatically that he now stands next to the average Trump voter, at least from the perspective of the people enraged by the existence of conservatives.

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So you can understand his incredulity as he watches the Democrat Party become what amounts to the fascist party in America, putting targets on the backs of its ideological opponents, seizing every scrap of institutional power to crush its "enemies," and in the process turning adversaries into targets for every form of lawfare and worse. 

...So, as Democratic leaders call to pack the Court with an instant liberal majority, others would like to remove existing justices through impeachment. They are sounding like a party of berserkers. There is little recognition of the dangerous, destabilizing impact of such actions on our constitutional system.

Turley remains a classical liberal and advocate of a rules-based social order, and it's been fascinating to watch his horror at what Democrats have become over the past couple of decades. As with Alan Dershowitz, who has always been more political but still believes in rules, he appears to have changed not because his own opinions shifted, but because those who used to be his political allies now behave like genuine left-wing fascists. 

Lawyers as a class are devoted to rules. That is what makes the law the law, and while many lawyers are simply sophists who will say or do anything to protect their own interests or their clients' interests, the profession itself is about rules and following them. An outcome is fair or at least justifiable if the rules are followed. 

Well, the rules no longer apply, and the norms are tossed out the window. The Democrats are all about changing the rules while loudly asserting they must do so to protect the rules. They must destroy the village in order to save it. 

Democrats appear to be adopting an “impeach-them-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out” approach to the upcoming session of Congress.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) suggested this week that Democrats may want to impeach United States Supreme Court justices because “you know, they kind of legalized a lot of his criminality.”


The democratic socialist has been promising “many, many, many” investigations into what she now calls the “criminals” in the Administration. In an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, she added the justices to the list of potential targets:

“There are so many criminals in this administration, it’s hard to figure out who should be, you know, the order of operations. There are going to be many, many, many investigations. I imagine many subpoenas, and we have to follow wherever the evidence takes us…I mean, I think we should leave all options on the table. Absolutely. I mean, of course this Supreme Court as well has also kind of legalized a lot of his criminality, and they’re pointing at impeachment. Impeachment in this Republican majority at that time was pointing at the Supreme Court/ We’ll see. We’ll approach it, but I think all options are on the table.” (emphasis added)

This is not the first such call by Ocasio-Cortez. She previously announced that she wants the impeachment of all six of the conservative justices. Other Democratic members immediately joined her call for Supreme Court impeachments. Ocasio-Cortez also admitted that she does not understand why we even have a Supreme Court. She asked, “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.”

Now, technically, you could argue that the Democrats simply intend to reestablish a "rules-based order" once they rewrite the rules to their liking. But that is complete sophistry, like suggesting that the Terror was just the result of applying the rules as written during the French Revolution. Tribunals held, executions follow. Perfectly fine, right?

Lady Justice is blind because rules and norms exist to preserve the system's legitimacy, and most people, most of the time, accept the results because they recognize the system serves the public good. If you get to rewrite the rules so one side always wins, the legitimacy evaporates. We respect the law because we respect the process, and if the process is rigged it is mere form and no substance that can be recognized as "legal."

It's been fascinating to watch the legal battles during the Trump years. Democrats keep pointing to Trump legal losses as proof that he doesn't respect the law, when in fact, unlike Biden, he obeys judicial decisions when they go against him — even when the judge who rules is clearly a partisan hack. 

Think of the Abrego-Garcia case. When the Supreme Court ruled he had to be brought back to America, it happened, despite the Trump administration's vehement objection. Now Abrego-Garcia, who is under a deportation order, spends his time speaking to protests about how lawless Trump is. 

Democrats, on the other hand, pretend that every Trump legal victory is proof that the system is rigged in his favor by judges who don't respect the law, and hence any decision in Trump's favor is de facto proof that the judge is corrupt. 

Heads, I win; tails, you lose. 

Democrats don't believe in the process. Rules are tools to achieve victory, and when you lose, the rules are obviously wrong and must be changed. 

It's a form of anti-politics if you think of politics as the peaceful way to resolve disputes and maintain a functioning civil society without resorting to force to settle matters. Americans are divided to the point where anger is reaching a boiling point, and what stands between us and a civil war over fundamental values is a shared belief in the process. 

That belief is crumbling, and social trust is at a historic low for our country. 

If the Democrats move forward to completely rig the system by removing judges who decide against them and packing the court with judges they like, the system will most certainly collapse at some point in the relatively near future. 

Democrats are now openly saying they intend to destroy Republicans "pour encourager les autres", and those others will not forever sit back and take it.

It doesn't have to be this way. For all its flaws, the American system of government has worked well enough for 250 years, and could for another 250 if we agree to fight it out in the halls of Capitol buildings and neutral courtrooms. It will be messy, unsatisfying, and frustrating.

But it will be peaceful. 

Instead, we are watching a crack up of the system, and a party drunk with power, both potential and real. They are out for blood, literally and figuratively, talking prison and execution for their domestic enemies. 

Yesterday I wrote about conservatives being metaphorical Ciceros — warning about the danger to the Republic and being slaughtered for their trouble. It is mostly a metaphor, and one I hope is inapt. But with the serial assassinations and attempted assassinations of conservatives and the steady talk of replacing our system of government with one more to the liking of liberals, I fear the metaphor is all too accurate.