If you're an American, you probably assume there's only one kind of democracy, the kind that you grew up with. That would be the democracy where citizens govern themselves through elected representatives chosen in free and fair elections by secret ballot. In that kind of democracy, you get to elect anyone you want because it's your government. The country belongs to you, its citizens. That's traditional American democracy. It exists to serve you.
But that's not the only kind of democracy. There's also the Soviet version of democracy. Same word, but very different definition. The Bolsheviks took power in Russia in 1917 by promising a lot more democracy. The country they created, the Soviet Union, became the most oppressive police state in history. Yet it was, you should know, a democracy. That's what they called it. East Germany was a democracy, too, so was North Vietnam, so is Ethiopia under Mengistu, so was Albania under the madman Enver Hoxha. Democracy is all.
In his very first speech as leader of North Korea in 1946, Kim Il Sung described the total destruction of any opposition to his rule, the killing of his political opponents as "democratic reforms." Almost 80 years later, his grandson, Kim Jong Un, continues to run North Korea as a democracy, a Soviet-style democracy.
Again, they're using a very different definition of the word. In their version of democracy, all decisions are made by a shadowy oligarchy, usually fronted by a strongman. Elections still take place, but the point isn't to find out what the population thinks or wants. The point is to lend an aura of legitimacy to the criminals already in charge. Here's Joseph Stalin himself, bragging about the results of the 1937 Soviet election, in which his party won roughly 99.4% support — 89 million votes to 562,000 votes for the other guys, whoever they were.
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JOSEPH STALIN: Never in the history of the world have there been such really free and really democratic elections. Never! History knows no other example of it.
Our elections, Stalin went on to say, are the only really free and really democratic elections in the whole world. At the moment Stalin spokes those words, he was busy murdering more than a million of his own citizens for political crimes in what became known as the Great Purge. Across the ocean here in the U.S., it was clear even at the time what was happening in the Soviet Union.
Some of Stalin's show trials were public and they were obviously totalitarian, but the American left supported Stalin anyway. That includes some of our country's most famous intellectuals and celebrities and journalists. The New York Times was all in. This turned out to be the version of democracy they supported—Stalin's version. Why are we telling you all this? Well, because you're hearing a lot about democracy lately, so it's important to understand which version they're talking about. Joe Biden gave a speech about democracy last night. Here's part of what he said.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: There's something else at stake: democracy itself. I'm not the only one who sees it. We must vote knowing what's at stake and not just the policy of the moment, but institutions that have held us together as we sought a more perfect union are also at stake. We must vote knowing who we have been, what we're risk of becoming. This is a struggle we're now in, a struggle for democracy, a struggle for decency and dignity, a struggle for prosperity and progress, a struggle for the very soul of America itself. Make no mistake, democracy is on the ballot for all of us.
"Democracy is on the ballot," says Joe Biden. No, Joe Biden. The names of candidates are on the ballot. Democracy is not on the ballot because democracy is not determined by the outcome of an election. Democracy is the election itself. Democracy is the process by which citizens choose how they will be governed according to their own desires. That's their choice. It's not yours, but Joe Biden is telling you the opposite and you should know that.
He's telling you that unless you arrive at a very specific outcome, the very outcome he commands you to arrive at, the system itself is illegitimate. We control the system. We have a moral right to control the system. Therefore, if we lose control of the system, the system itself can no longer exist. This is a dramatic misreading of what American democracy is. In American democracy, the people who control the system only have a right to control that system to the extent the public grants them that right through voting. What Biden is describing is the Soviet version of democracy where elections exist to ratify the status quo, to bolster the cabal already in power. That's effectively with the Democratic Party is saying out loud.
Now here's Barack Obama.
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BARACK OBAMA: I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now, but we have seen throughout history and we see right now around the world what happens when you give up on democracy. You can see it in countries where the government tells you what books you can and cannot read. Countries where if you dissent, you get put in the jail. Countries where reporters are silenced.
Oh, he's slick. But it's hard to believe he really means that. "I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now," said Barack Obama. Really? The opposite is so obviously true. Democracy is very much a top priority for so many Americans this November and that's why you're seeing record turnout in these midterm elections, because voters are using the only power they have, their ballots in our democracy, to punish their reckless and incompetent leaders and replace them with somebody else.
What you are seeing unmistakably is democracy in action. That would be very obvious to anyone who believes that democracy means representation. But to those who believe that democracy means supporting the Democratic Party, no matter what it does, to those people, this moment has a very different feel. This moment feels like an emergency.
A rejection of Joe Biden's party, from their perspective, is the end of the system itself and they clearly believe that. They mean it. That's why the Biden administration has spent the last two years destroying the two prerequisites for American democracy. Those would be free speech and the rule of law. It's why they've silenced disobedient reporters. It's why they put their political opponents in jail. It's why FBI agents with automatic rifles dragged Christians from their homes for the crime of praying in abortion clinics. It's why nonviolent protesters remain in jail tonight for daring to walk into what used to be called the "People's House" because as far as the Democratic Party is concerned, that house no longer belongs to the people. It belongs to the party, along with the entire U.S. government and the nation itself.
That's how they think. If you really believe that you had a moral right to govern forever, and they really do believe that, you would see elections very differently. You wouldn't view the loss of a midterm cycle as the usual healthy rebalancing of American politics. Too far in one direction, swing back toward the other side, the kind of thing that has happened countless times in our U.S. democracy. That's what's supposed to happen, but you wouldn't see that. You can see the loss of your own political power as the loss of everything, as the total destruction of the system itself, the beginning of the dark ages. If you believe that, you might be hysterical and they are. Watch.
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OBAMA: Democracy is at stake in this election, Nevada.
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC: He made it clear that democracy is at stake this November.
ALI VELSHI: Democracy is at stake this November.
AL FRANKEN: Our democracy is at stake.
ADRIAN FONTES, ARIZONA SEC OF STATE: Our democracy is at stake.
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: The future of our democracy is at stake.
KATIE HOBBS: We all know democracy is at stake.
MEHDI HASAN, MSNBC: This is the most important election coming up because democracy is at stake.
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, MSNBC: Nothing less than the future of democracy is at stake
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Really? It's nonsensical to Americans, most of them, because isn't this democracy, dissatisfied with one thing, we're choosing another? Isn't that our most basic right? No, not according to the people you just saw and keep in mind, those weren't just talking points you heard. The people mouthing those words believe them sincerely, every one of them and they're emotional about it, because if the Democratic Party goes, so do they.
The party is the only power they have. Once that party has been rejected, they will be nothing but what they already are, sad middle age mediocrities with tragic personal lives and nothing interesting to say. Everything is on the line for them. They can't lose and because they can't lose, they're not getting explicit about "what if."
Here's Ron Klain, Joe Biden's all-powerful chief of staff, issuing an explicit threat to anyone who might be thinking of voting the wrong way next Tuesday
RON KLAIN: The president decided a few days ago that it was important to issue one final warning on this issue, to make very clear, to leave no doubt that we have people out there still peddling the big lie, people now raising the issue of election denial in this election.
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One final warning? One final warning, really? Who do you think you're talking to, Ron Klain? Illiterate villagers? We're Americans. We are free people. You don't get to warn us of anything, much less for the last time. This is your final warning? Yeah. Don't think so. You don't get to say that, Ron Klain.
You don't get to say anything like that, ever, because this is a democracy, an American democracy, not a Soviet democracy. In our system, you don't get to issue orders to the rest of us on the eve of an election. No. You beg for our consent because our consent is the only legitimacy you have. This is our government. It's not yours. You are the servant. We are the boss. Act like it.
