Barack Obama, re-Founding Father

Even as progressives claim to speak for “the people,” the increasingly manifest reality is that their power flows from the death star in Washington. In last November’s election, the death star’s environmental policies became an issue in Senate elections in Colorado, Iowa, Alaska, North Carolina, West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana. The Democrats were wiped out.

The Education Department’s campus kangaroo courts and its “lists” of schools “under investigation” flow from one Washington office building. Even the Harvard Law faculty pushed back.

The left’s bloodless analysts might argue that none of this matters because their voting coalition and Electoral College math still favor victory for 2016’s rerun of an “historic” presidential campaign. They may be right. If for another eight years the progressives can pick federal enforcement lawyers, while the Supreme Court still gives “deference” to most of this, the Re-Founding of the American system will be a done deal. Even C-Span won’t cover Congress.

“Obama’s power grabs” is Republican boilerplate. Voters don’t care about power grabs. But most voters, perhaps including many pre-2008 Democrats, still care about being represented in Washington as defined by the first Founding. Mrs. Clinton may wish to run silent on this transformation. Her opponents should not.