The Democrats have always been their own worst enemies. 

Their totalitarian reflexes — their inbred tendency since the days of slavery to use threats, bullying, and intimidation instead of calm persuasion — scare off the very voters they need and could get. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is merely the latest example of this.

The Democrats were perfectly positioned to be the "party of science," the saviors of the country through the calm implementation of the vaccination program spearheaded by Donald Trump and the big pharmaceutical companies.

Naturally, Biden claimed that Trump had done "nothing" about creating a vaccination program — aside from, you know, getting the vaccine developed and approved in record time.

But Biden and the Democrats could have at least claimed that they had organized the systemic distribution of the vaccine all across the country, getting it to an estimated 200 million Americans in record time.

They could have taken credit for that.  And they could have used that as an excuse for why the country is suffering from chronic supply chain problems, empty shelves, runaway inflation, and a labor shortage not seen since World War II.

But no. 

Because the overwhelming motive of Democrat activists everywhere is to believe in their moral superiority over just about every human being who has ever lived — because deep down, they despise the country they want to govern with an iron fist — the Democrats just couldn't do that.

They had to embrace the most stringent mask and vaccination mandates possible — and, not only that but also impose the most vindictive punishments when their edicts were not obeyed.

It turns out that some Democrat politicians are not merely threatening to fire police and other first responders if they decline to be vaccinated.  They're looking into ways they can confiscate their pensions as well.

Democrat politicians from Chairman Joe Biden to New York's Red Mayor Bill de Blasio, Chuck Schumer to Nancy Pelosi, had to portray the pandemic in partisan terms — as a political battle between the virtuous (the vaxxed) and the deplorables (the unvaxxed, those who remain hesitant to embrace a new technology when they don't absolutely need it).

Plus, Democrats always, always, always resort to force — whether it's storming the Branch Davidian compound and killing innocent children in the process or ordering firefighters to be vaccinated or be fired.  As de Blasio put it, "the voluntary phase is over."

More than anything else, Democrat politicians love power — and they love exercising that power even when it's unnecessary and counterproductive.

By issuing nonstop threats...by claiming falsely that COVID-19 is a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"...by throwing their weight around and firing thousands of nurses, firefighters, police, and other first responders...the Democrats are consigning themselves to the political wilderness, where they belong.

Americans don't like bullies, and the Democrats have revealed themselves to be the biggest bullies of them all.

Democrat-run cities across America are about to experience firsthand the consequences of embracing the Democrats' authoritarian tactics.

Thousands of firefighters, police, and nurses are going to quit rather than submit to what feels, at least, like the overreach of a tyrannical government.

Very soon, the piled-up garbage in Democrat cities will be even more voluminous than it already is. 

The police in some places will cease answering 911 calls — assuming that there are still operators to answer them. 

As thousands of nurses are fired, hospitals will have to treat only the sickest and turn many away.

Shelves in many places will be bare due to the lack of truck drivers to deliver supplies.

This is the brilliant plan Democrat progressives have for winning the 2022 midterms and 2024 national elections: to threaten, insult, and cause devastating economic harm to the voters (many of them liberal union workers) they need to win.

By taking their cues from the worst of the totalitarian Left — the likes of Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — Democrats are revealing what they really stand for in America.

And Americans are getting the message.  The Democrats believe in threats, bullying, and force — nothing more and nothing less. 

The problem is, Americans don't tolerate bullies for long.  They put up with a lot...until they no longer do.  The Democrats are about to discover this basic truth the hard way.

Robert J. Hutchinson writes about the intersection of history, politics and ideas.  He is the author of What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination.

Image via Pxhere.

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