BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY DEC. 16, 2019) — When THE PLANET or anyone other analyst speaks of democracy’s erosion, we refer to a process of cheapening a political and governmental system going back generations and assuming its virulent beginning with the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.

FDR instituted a version of the presidency that elevated it to a form of, what exactly? Constitutional “monarchy” sans king? Secular “divine right?” Autocracy? Dictatorship? Each president since has in some form or another built on Roosevelt’s work.  FDR did not “save” the country from The Great Depression. WWII did that. His lean toward socialism made sacrosanct Big Brother Government, who would protect us from cradle to grave. Today we would no more question government programs such as Social Security or the ruinous taxation of entrepreneurial success than we would protest technocracy by going 360-Amish and swearing off computers. Try that in 2019.

The imperial presidency in turn drove similar movements in the federal legislative and judicial branches. It would take anything from a monograph at least to a multi-volume tome to explore this fascinating and lamentable demise of “democracy” — and please spare us lectures on the difference between theoretical “republicanism” and “democracy.” These branches of government now turn exclusively on majority-party power. When the GOP had sway, they impeached President Bill Clinton for lying about a blow job and robbed Democrat Al Gore of a presidency. Democrats have been returning the favor with interest, most lately via the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

This disintegration of governmental America has left us with a political life keynoted by hostility and a cheapening of how we got about public discourse. Sadly, it has filtered down to the local level. Somewhere along the way, the nation’s highest office on all levels of government — the office of Private Citizen, has been cheapened and devalued worse than 1923 Weimar Reichmarks.

With that preface, THE PLANET presents a guest column by colleague Derrick Hunter. In this piece, Hunter discusses the Trump impeachment with an eye on “The Cheapening Effect.”

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Impeachment Has Been ‘Weaponized’

By DEREK HALL

It was one of the longest telegraphed punches in political history, but that doesn’t make it any less of a cheap shot. Just 19 minutes after he took the oath of office, at 12:19 on January 20th, 2017, the Washington Post ran a piece entitled, “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.” Donald Trump finished his inauguration address at 12:18.

From that moment forward, Democrats have been working toward what they’ll likely achieve this week: voting articles of impeachment out of the House of Representatives, branding an asterisk next to Donald J. Trump’s name in the history books.

They’ve never accepted the results of the 2016 election. They’d not only measured the drapes in the Oval Office, Democrats had visions of new liberal Supreme Court Justices dancing in their heads for a year. Those dirty, smelly Americans living between their superiors on the coasts ruined their plans, and this is part of the payback.

In their wrath, Democrats have cheapened the important power of Congress to remove a truly lawless executive from a just, but rarely exercised occurrence to the equivalent of a vote of “no confidence” in a parliamentary government.

Now that impeachment has been weaponized over dislike of the person occupying the office, why wouldn’t the opposition party impeach any president in the future over anything? Democrats have been unbound by facts, evidence, and even reality in their Ahab-esque pursuit of President Trump. As soon as the articles of impeachment are adopted by the House, any stigma that would be attached to an electoral-strategy based impeachment is gone. Republicans would be foolish to unilaterally disarm and surrender the tactic in the future.

The cheapening of Congressional impeachment power is just the latest in a series of actions Democrats have taken to water-down once-powerful, and meaningful, charges and institutions. And each one, each “victory” for the left, damages the country further.

Being called a “racist” used to carry weight; it was not tossed around lightly. When someone or something was called racist, it was met with a seriousness by the public, unless and until it was disproven. In that, the left saw opportunity.

Al Sharpton pioneered calling everything racist and Jesse Jackson perfected the art of the shakedown. Both positioned themselves, with the help of fellow travelers in the media, not only as accusers but absolvers as well. Forgiveness was only a donation check and symbolic gesture away. Both “Reverends” were afforded fabulously wealthy lifestyles, having their humiliations and shortcomings glossed over or ignored by the press, and Sharpton ended up with a cable “news” show. They also served, at different times, as rings Democratic candidates had to kiss if they wanted their party’s presidential nomination, with Al currently filling that seat.

But each false charge, while tightening their grip on power and fattening their wallets, helped drown out real charges and hurt real victims. A real cry for justice gets lost in a chorus of opportunists.

Take “racist” and replace it with whatever alternative “ist” or “phobe” word you like; lather, rinse, repeat.

I’d like to think we reached a crescendo with the rash of fake hate crimes claimed after Trump’s victory, but liberals have not slowed down one bit. Nor will they. Ever. Unless, maybe, they’re held to their own standards; forced to live the way they’re forcing on everyone else.

Unfortunately, for the country, Democrats have taken us to a dark place. By cheapening impeachment to the point that it is nothing more than an electoral strategy, when it is needed – and no nation is perfect, it likely will be needed again – it will go over like the twelfth time “wolf” was cried and a president who should be removed from office for the sake of the republic will survive.

There is nothing Democrats won’t do to win next year. Remember that feeling you had on November 9, 2016, about 2:30 am, when the media could no longer pretend Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were “too close to call” and they had to admit Donald Trump was President-elect? Remember the looks on the faces of those Democrats, both elected and masquerading as journalists; the shock and horror? They want revenge for that; for failing them, for defying them.

Nothing short of a major outbreak of conscience or love of country is going to stop Democrats from taking the country down this destructive path, and everything they’ve done during the Trump administration shows they’re immune.

Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.

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We thank Hunter for his piece. THE PLANET hopes it will help stimulate a vigorous debate on a vital public issue.

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“There’s always a ditch on both sides of the road” — Sir Tiberius Fruitjuice.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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