Submitted by J. Theodore Schatt,

Democrats have voted to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for failing to hand over documents that he is precluded by law from disclosing. Democrats on Capitol Hill are complaining of unprecedented White House obstruction creating a constitutional crisis. President Trump is described by these same individuals as a: “racist”; “traitor”; “authoritative dictator” and worse. If you, like me, have wondered why the tradition of civil public discourse evaporated, I think I have the answer.

The Democrats sole intention over the next year and a half is to create such a chaotic national political landscape that the 2020 electoral pitch to the American people will be that the only way to end the chaos is to vote President Trump out of office.

It would appear that Democrats have made the cold and calculated decision that they cannot effectively engage the President on policy. Understandably so. How do you argue against an economic policy that results in higher wages and the lowest unemployment numbers in a half decade after previously telling the public to get used to the new normal? How do you engage in a discussion of health care policy when the last plan you sold to the American public was based upon lower cost and an ability to keep both your plan and your doctor and all three turned out to be false? How do you effectively engage the President on immigration when the President has been on the issue for three and a half years while you have insisted there is not a problem? It would require an admission that doing nothing was in error and a capitulation that most of what Trump has wanted is in fact necessary.

The calculation appears to be that if the political scene becomes chaotic enough, a majority of likely voters will tune it all out and come to the conclusion that the only way to end the chaos is to change Presidents in much the same way that parents of screaming infants tend to give the infant what it wants. That impulse will be fostered by the continuous mantra that Trump’s personality is poisonous to our national unity. “He’s the cause of divisiveness.” “He’s a racist.” “He’s an authoritative dictator.” The added bonus for Democrats will be that the criminal charges soon to come over the Obama Administration’s interference in the 2016 election will be explained away as simply “trumped” up political charges by an “authoritative dictator”.

There would appear to be two potential outcomes:

1. The American electorate sees through the smoke and punishes the Democrats at the ballot box for their conduct; or 2. The scheme works and Democrats get a pass on their complicity in the Obama Administration’s interference in the 2016 election.

The true beauty of democracy is in either scenario, we the American people get exactly what we deserve.