Global Courant
A recent attempt to remove Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was criticized by a former federal election official as the latest example of an attack by the left on the country’s government institutions.
Americans are taking notice of the trend, with poll results that run counter to popular media narratives and imply that Republicans are more trusted to protect democracy than Democrats, according to law professor and former FEC commissioner Brad Smith.
“Thomas’ continued smear campaign is one of many reasons why polls consistently show Americans more likely than Republicans to see Democrats as a threat to democracy, despite a decade of Democratic campaigning for this claim,” Smith recently tweeted.
Thomas has come under scrutiny and even faced calls to resign after a report allegedly outlining gifts and benefits he accepted while sitting on the nation’s highest court, but they are just the latest effort to delegitimize Thomas or to upend the Supreme Court. Justice has long been a target of the left in recent decades, though one ethics compliance expert characterized the current investigation as “grabbing for straws.”
“I started noticing a series of polls some time ago by various pollsters, generally well-respected pollsters, asking a variation of the question, ‘Which party do you think is a greater threat to democracy?'” Smith told Fox News .digital.
“And pretty consistently those polls showed a majority — in some cases a very small majority, in some cases a larger majority — saying Democrats were a greater threat to democracy,” he added. “This goes so against the narrative of most of the press, against the academic community, which I’m a part of, and that was very interesting to me.”
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Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on October 21, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Smith pointed to a November 2021 Marist poll that showed the Democrats as the party posing the greatest “threat” to democracy by 1 percentage point, as well as the December 2021 Rasmussen poll where 37% of voters rated the Democrats as the bigger threat saw democracy compared to 26% who felt that way about Republicans.
A Fox News poll also showed a similar result last June, when 46% of registered voters said Republicans would protect democracy better compared to 45% who said Democrats.
The left is also in the midst of an effort to expand the Supreme Court into what critics call “packing,” to add democratic choices and shift the balance toward one more favorable to liberal ideology. According to experts, these are just a few examples of the politicization of government institutions and the questioning of American standards.
This comes after the widely publicized objections of Democrats to the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the violence surrounding the overturn of the Roe v. Wade abortion precedent, and Democratic lawmakers in Tennessee and Minnesota who recently refused to follow House procedures. Smith said.
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CHEVY CHASE, MD: Pro-choice activists approach the home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to stage a demonstration. (Bonnie Cash/Getty Images)
“In 2011, progressives basically physically took over the Wisconsin State Capitol,” Smith recalled. “In 2013, they basically physically took over the Texas State Capitol, in an effective attempt to stop these legislatures from acting, which are elected legislatures with the elected majorities, acting within their sphere.”
While Smith said Democrats were right to criticize Republicans after the Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6, he hypothesized that Democrats are likely suffering in the polls because some members misrepresented the results of the vote in the 2000, 2004 and 2004 presidential elections. questioned or denied 2016.
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Law enforcement officers forcibly clear the gallery of the Montana House of Representatives during a protest after the Speaker of the House at the state capitol again refused Rep. Zoey Zephyr, D-Missoula. (Thom Bridge, Helena Independent Record)
“I think people see all these things, they’re not really directly related, they’re different kinds of actions, but these are all things that you could easily say “that sounds undemocratic to me” or “contrary to our democracy.” ‘ said Smith.
“Enthusiasm to occupy the court – that’s certainly something that people are suspicious of – so there’s a whole range of things that I think one could at least rationally conclude that the Democrats are a greater threat to democracy than the Republicans.”
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The crux of the problem is that many Americans have a perception that Democrats are “fundamentally against the American project” and that becomes apparent when the left tries to rename schools named after Founding Fathers and generally appear to be “less interested.” in the Constitution, Smith said.
Smith added that while both parties have their fair share of mistakes, it’s worth asking why so many people see the Democrats as a threat to democracy, despite the prevailing media narrative that the Republicans are the ones to fear to be ahead.
“I’m not trying to make comparisons here that much, I’m just focusing on the Democrats simply because that’s not part of the story at all,” Smith said.
“The story is that Republicans are a threat to democracy,” he said. “I think our political system has a lot of problems right now and they are manifesting themselves in different degrees in both parties and if we’re going to address them, people have to be honest about that and they have to recognize it for themselves.”
Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
