The biggest threat to our democracy isn't Donald Trump

It's the people who don't vote.

Maybe I’ve been spending too much time on social media, but, right now, I think the biggest threat to democracy is not Donald Trump. It’s the Democrats’ left flank. My feeds are full of posts that declare Joe Biden is just as bad as Trump. Others proudly proclaim they will never vote for Biden. Donald Trump may be the president who destroys our country as we know it, but first he’s got to win an election. The left seems hellbent on making that happen by sitting out the election and encouraging other voters to join them.

We’ve been here before. In 2000, the left gave us George Bush and the Iraq war because they insisted that there was no difference between Bush and Al Gore. Demoralized younger voters either stayed home or voted for Ralph Nader. In doing so, they delivered Florida and the presidency to Bush.

Sentiments today echo those times. Back then, the left insisted the center-left policies of Bill Clinton were the same as the right-wing politics of the Gingrich revolutionaries. Today, according to the left, Biden is nothing but a war monger who is too weak on climate change, too tough on immigration, and failing to keep his promise on student loans.

Of course, their dogma is dog shit. They’ve bastardized concepts and ideals embedded in the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement that gave us almost 50 years of progressive Democratic governance. They promote socialism over capitalism. They conflate identity politics with embracing diversity. They demand equality of outcomes over equality of opportunity. And they confuse the First Amendment right to protest with democracy itself.

We hear a lot about late-stage capitalism as if our economic system is on the brink of collapse. The left has once again embraced socialism, forgetting that they largely abandoned the ideology after socialist economies around the world collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They’re advocating for a bunch of failed ideas, but have too little sense of history to know that they don’t work.

The modern left views the world through an oppressor-oppressed ideological framework that promotes identity politics. They see a monolithic system maintaining a status quo of corporate power dominated by straight White men trying keep down people of color, the LGBT+ community, and other marginalized groups. They believe guaranteeing equal outcomes for each identity group will make us a more just society. They are wrong.

In reality, they’ve corrupted the concept that diversity is our strength. Our country is a melting pot where we celebrate different cultures and welcome them into society, even if we struggle for that acceptance. That’s a central battle between liberal democrats and right-wing populists since the beginning of our country. The goal of most people coming to our country is to become part of our society, not remain separate. They want to become Asian Americans, African Americans, Muslim Americans, with the common theme here being American.

We’ve made unbelievably rapid progress in accepting people of different sexualities and genders, though we still need to make more progress. Ellen came out of the closet less than 25 years ago and today we allow gay people to marry. After a few millennia, that’s a hell of a lot of progress in a short amount of time.

I know that our country is an ongoing project. We still have a lot of work to do to ensure equality, especially with African Americans and Native Americans who had discrimination against them enforced by the state. The remnants of systemic racism are certainly still around and need to be rooted out, but I don’t believe our system of government or economy is based on oppression and I believe most people just want a fair shake and the chance at a better life.

Finally, the left seems to prioritize protesting over voting. They thrive on being aggrieved on behalf of some group. The dumbest sign in any protest march is the one that reads, “This is what democracy looks like.” No, it isn’t. Democracy looks like a line wrapped around a building with people waiting to cast a ballot. Democracy looks like a group of people knocking on doors or sitting at tables urging people to register to vote. Democracy is the act of choosing the people who most closely align with your views to represent you in government.

While protesting has its place, it’s what the First Amendment looks like, not democracy. If tens of thousands of people gathered on the Mall protesting Donald Trump’s election is democracy, so is 20 people waving Confederate flags in front of some Southern state capitol. So, no, it’s not democracy. It’s free speech protected by the people who participate in democracy.

The left sees itself as protectors of oppressed minorities when it’s made up predominantly of privileged White kids and academic types. They live in as much of a bubble as their counterparts on the right. And they see the world through the same prism of victimization, just the right believes White people are being oppressed and the left thinks everybody else is.

In reality, Black voters are the most moderate block of voters in the Democratic Party. In North Carolina, the two largest Native American tribes, the Lumbee and Cherokee, are voting predominantly with Republicans these days. Hispanic and Latino voters, who tend to be Catholic or evangelical, are certainly more moderate than the left as a whole. While the LGBT+ community is overwhelmingly Democratic, I don’t get a sense that they want to overthrow the system. They just want the right to be part of it. So, really, I’m not sure which oppressed group the left represents.

I guess the left thinks that if they sit out the election and help Donald Trump get elected again, they’ll have more to protest over the next four years. As for me, I’ll spend the next eleven months trying to protect democracy by encouraging everybody I know to go vote and arguing with the people who say it doesn’t matter. The biggest threat to our democracy is the people don’t participate. And if you can’t see the difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, you’re either stupid or blinded by your own self-righteousness.