Get ready for the next episode of the Democratic Party’s ongoing soap opera: the Jan. 6 committee hearing will hit primetime Thursday night.
Congressional Dems are hoping this will be the ratings blockbuster that revives their sagging fortunes as they hammer ex-prez Donald Trump — now out of office over 16 months — over his alleged role in the Capitol Riots.
But as with all good soap operas, there’s a twist. Turns out a big chunk of the committee wants massive changes to the US electoral system, including not just the Dems’ failed bill to federalize election law but axing the Electoral College — an idea spearheaded by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) as essential to saving our democracy.
This is one (not at all) shocking development Americans will take no interest in. They don’t care about phantasmal claims of election illegitimacy. They want cheaper food and gas and safer streets.
Rewriting federal election law (and even the Constitution, to kill the Electoral College) has as little to do with that as it does with saving democracy.
The college has long been a bête noire for the left: Al Gore won the popular vote, so did Hillary Clinton; neither took the White House. So the Electoral College needs to go — it gets in the way of Democratic presidencies!
In other words, it’s all about political power. Just like all the other Trump-adjacent theatrics.
Let’s be clear: For all Democrats’ efforts to suggest otherwise, the normal operation of rules (especially constitutionally mandated ones) around elections does not undermine democracy.
Indeed, the years-long effort to abolish or undermine processes and institutions hemming in their power — like the filibuster, or the Supreme Court — shows just how serious Dems are about protecting the values enshrined in the American system.
It also shows just how much contempt they have for the voters that they imagine this selfish display will get them to tune in.
By making the hearing into a referendum on quixotic political projects in the midst of historic inflation and economic malaise, Raskin & Co. are guaranteeing the public’s lack of interest.
