It's Democrats who are failing the democracy test in the midterms

The irony here is that Democrats themselves are attacking the foundations of democracy in so many ways, from their contempt for the “legitimacy” of the Supreme Court, to their advocacy and practice of federal government-Big Tech collusion to censor dissenting viewpoints, to their suppression of accurate, but critical, reporting on prominent Democrats, to their blithe acceptance of Mark Zuckerberg’s unprecedented financial and logistical intervention in the conduct of the 2020 election. And we haven’t even mentioned the rank absurdity of the Democrats’ central argument this election season: that only by ruling out of bounds the opposition party, and turning America into a one-party state, can we save “democracy”—as though pluralism and democracy had nothing to do with one another!

I wish to draw attention, however, to another galling and undemocratic feature of the Democrats’ thinking. It’s worth reminding ourselves, for starters, what democracy is. Democracy is a system in which the people rule, in our case by electing leaders who represent us and who, broadly speaking, run the country according to the people’s wishes.

So what, we should ask ourselves, do the people want?

The polls tell us, regularly and unambiguously, that what the people want right now is leaders who share their priorities and goals. At present, the American people rate inflation, crime, and border security as top-tier issues. You would expect, in a democracy, that current and aspiring political leaders would take the people’s views and concerns seriously. They would, among other things, talk about these hot-button issues and suggest ways to address the people’s concerns.

But not if they’re Democrats! Oh no. Democrats have decided that they know better than the American people, and that the priorities, goals, and even the darkest fantasies beloved of progressives ought to be topping the electoral agenda this fall.