We know of a group working to undermine democracy nationwide by limiting voters’ options and choices. It’s not a shadowy right-wing cabal, of the sort routinely imagined by the mainstream media. No, this one is a super PAC named Clear Choice Actions established by allies of lame-duck President Biden. They claim on their sparse website – which has no address, not even a P.O. box, and no contact information – that they’re “dedicated to educating the public and protecting the constitutional rights of citizens, as well as upholding democratic institutions.” This is Orwellian newspeak, on the scale of North Korea calling itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Their real goal is to keep independent and third-party candidates, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, off the ballot.

Here in Maine, their activities came to light thanks to equally mysterious outside actors who paid to get Cornel West on the ballot. Now, that’s shady as well, but at least they’re working to expand voters’ choices rather than limit them, regardless of their motives. It would be nice to think that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are truly unaware of the efforts by their allies to limit democracy, but since Kamala Harris refuses to hold a news conference, reporters may never get a chance to ask her – and most of them probably wouldn’t be interested in doing so anyway. One of the problems, you see, in this presidential election is that regardless of your feelings about the individual candidates the vast majority of the mainstream press clearly favors one side. They won’t press Harris on her refusal to do a news conference, and if she ever deigns to do so, they’d toss her softball questions – because they support her.

So, they’ll ignore the activities of Clear Choice Actions, for the most part. It’s a miracle they even got a passing mention. If it hadn’t been for conservatives helping Cornel West make the ballot, they probably wouldn’t have. This isn’t just an isolated incident, though. It’s part of a pattern of the so-called Democratic Party doing everything it can to, in fact, undermine democracy. It began with the Democratic primaries, which did actually happen, albeit without Kamala Harris’ participation.

Instead, Joe Biden ran, and Democratic Party insiders – or, to be more precise, institutionalists (the latter is almost the better term) – did everything they could to clear the decks for him. Terrified of any opposition to their anointed one, they made sure nobody substantive ran against him. In the end, he only faced former Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, a Maryland man named Jason Palmer and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy felt so much pressure from Democrats that he ended up launching an ill-fated run as an independent instead, while Phillips slunk back to Minnesota and Palmer happily endorsed Harris. It’s remarkable that, given the preexisting concerns about his age and the criticism from the left, Biden didn’t face a more formidable challenge, but it shows the degree of control that Democratic institutionalists exert over the party. If Biden’s disastrous debate performance had occurred in the midst of a heated primary, we’d be facing a very different picture right now, but Democrats made sure voters never got the chance to see that happen.

So, Democrats made sure Biden had no meaningful opponents, replaced him without the input of voters, then made sure his replacement had no opponents. After doing all of that, they’re scurrying around the country doing everything they can to keep third-party or independent candidates off the ballot. Meanwhile, their replacement presidential candidate refuses to hold a news conference, spurning the media even as they fawn over her. These are the actions of a party whose primary goal is to maintain their grip on power, not to save democracy. Joe Biden even admitted as much when he said Democrats’ version of Project 2025 (the supposedly nefarious conservative scheme once they take power) is to “beat the hell out of them.”

Apparently, Joe Biden can remember his goal is to beat Republicans now, not  Medicare – or at least, he can before 8 p.m.

It’s perfectly fine that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and their allies will say and do anything to get elected – that’s to be expected of most career politicians. What’s not fine is that most of the mainstream media seems content to pretend that only one party does this, painting them as villains. That turns every election into a battle between good and evil, rather than a simple contest between different ideologies.

Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
jwfossel@gmail.com
Twitter: @jimfossel