Democratic in Name Only

It's the same old story. By Luke Pickrell

California Governor Gavin Newsom warned that the Trump Administration is “taking a wrecking ball to our founding fathers’ historic project” and endangering the health of American democracy. The Constitution's creators “did not live and die to see this moment,” he opined. “It’s time for all of us to stand up.” Newsom encouraged Americans to continue their peaceful protests and praised state law enforcement for maintaining order and upholding the law.

Survivors of the grueling presidential campaign season know that Newsom’s rhetoric is nothing new. Faced with the Trump “wrecking ball,” the Democratic Party has consistently positioned itself as defenders of American democracy and the Constitution. Joe Biden — Nancy Pelosi’s “determined champion for democracy” — kicked off the campaign season with a warning about “the threat to our institutions, to our Constitution itself, and the very character of our nation.” Kamala Harris called Trump a fascist and a dictator in waiting, while Barack Obama has repeatedly sounded the alarm about threats to democracy since leaving office.

This rhetoric hearkens back to an imaginary past — to a time before a boogeyman named Trump materialized, when things supposedly worked as they should. In doing so, Biden, Harris, Obama, Newsom, and other Democratic Party heavyweights absolve themselves of responsibility for America’s very real problems.

Newsom’s speech is a prime example. Trump is condemned for “reckless” and “indiscriminate” immigration policies that are “very different than anything we’ve seen before.” Fair enough. Americans aren’t used to masked agents in unmarked vans, and abductions in broad daylight. But it was Harris who tried to outdo Trump on the campaign trail, criticizing him for not passing “probably the most extensive border funding and security package” in decades. It was Biden who exercised his executive authority to shut down the border — a move critics called “excruciating and likely deadly" and “one of the most restrictive immigration policies ever declared under a recent Democratic administration." Obama still holds the record for most deportations — a number Trump, despite his heavy-handed tactics, isn’t on pace to surpass. And despite Tom Homan hinting at Newsom’s arrest, more than a third of House Democrats voted for a bill thanking ICE for its service.

Then there’s the police. Newsom called out Trump for his “reckless deployment of American troops” and attempt to intimidate people into “fealty” and “silence.” Again, fair enough. Activating the National Guard over a governor is a rare move. But it’s the Los Angeles Police Department that has done the most harm to First Amendment rights — inexplicably detaining one reporter and shooting two others with rubber bullets. Protesters have described LAPD officers as “super hard and aggressive.” Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — praised by California Attorney General Rob Bonta as a preferable alternative to the National Guard — has its own long history of violence and corruption.

Addressing the nation, Newsom criticized Trump for “not protecting” and “traumatizing our communities.” That’s ironic, coming from a multi-millionaire who embraced the Supreme Court’s ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson — a decision described by homeless rights advocates as “terrifying,” “dystopian,” and “quite possibly the most consequential decision in history up until this point relating to homeless rights.” Not satisfied with how quickly his “community” was being “protected,” Newsom threatened to withhold state funding and cleared at least one encampment himself — a PR stunt Fox News eagerly covered. It’s no secret that homelessness in California is driven by powerful interest groups like the private equity-dominated real estate rental market, the healthcare industry, and major corporations that pay poverty wages. Newsom has zero interest in combating any of them.

Newsom also supports the cruel and counterproductive war on drugs, has vetoed legislation that would limit the use of solitary confinement — an internationally recognized form of torture — and has blocked legislation that would provide unemployment benefits and health and safety protections, all while handing out benefits to billionaires in the tech industry. Connor Ghalleger puts it perfectly: Newsom is “a smile and a shiv.”

Obama bled out homeowners, bailed out the banks, and killed citizens and non-citizens alike. (Even Martin Luther King Jr. could have been detained without trial and assassinated by executive decree under Obama’s National Security Administration, argues Cornel West.) Biden cut COVID benefits, pardoned family members, and oversaw the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Democratic Party mayors like Rahm Emanuel and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake presided over police killings and the repression of protesters, while almost everyone chipped in to sink Bernie Sanders. And all of them support the minoritarian Constitution, which gave us Trump in the first place.

It’s the same story year after year: Democrats force a smile and critique just enough of the Republican agenda to get elected, and then bring out the shiv to work everyone over.

As many already know, the Democrats are democratic in name only.