Dick Cheney went from despised war criminal to the Left’s new bestie on Friday when the former Vice President announced he was voting for Kamala Harris. Cheney justified his decision by claiming “[i]n our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.” Cheney’s rhetoric ignores reality — both what Trump actually did when he was president and what the Harris-Walz ticket proposes to do. And it is the Democrat ticket’s policies that represent the actual threat to our constitutional republic. Here are three clear examples.
- Free Speech
Freedom of speech is so fundamental to our constitutional republic that the founding generation prohibited government infringement on that right in the First Amendment. However, since Donald Trump’s surprise victory in 2016 launched the censorship-industrial complex, the government has been moving aggressively to silence speech. And the consequences of government censorship can be devastating, as Americans learned in the context of COVID, when our government hid or minimized the dangers of vaccines, and deprived citizens of a fulsome debate over mandatory masking and school closures.
Donald Trump has promised to end the federal government’s efforts to censor speech, pledging last week to “sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business or person to censor, limit, categorize or impede the lawful speech of American citizens.” Trump further committed to “ban[ning] federal money from being used to label domestic speech as mis- or disinformation” and to firing federal bureaucrats responsible for domestic censorship activities.
Conversely, “Harris’ track record shows she’s the enemy of our most fundamental liberty: free speech.” As Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York, detailed in a recent article for the New York Post, “Harris chose as her deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty, formerly the White House director of digital strategy — the person who called the shots about what got censored under President Biden.”
During her failed primary run in 2019, then-Sen. Harris also pressured Jack Dorsey, the then-CEO of Twitter, to deplatform Donald Trump. The California senator justified her call for a ban by claiming Trump “used his platform, being the president of the United States in a way that has been about inciting fear and potentially inciting harm against a witness to what might be a crime against our country and our democracy.”
With Twitter now X and owned by Elon Musk, a President Harris may not succeed in silencing her political opponents at that outlet — at least not directly. But Democrats are already positing solutions to the problem of Musk. For instance, Robert Reich, who served as the labor secretary under Bill Clinton, proposed the Federal Trade Commission sue Musk if the owner of X refuses to “take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals …”
And if Harris wins the White House, she’ll control the Federal Trade Commission and the priorities of that and the dozens of other federal agencies, making the risk to free speech rights a clear and present danger.
- Supreme Court
A Harris presidency also threatens the separation of powers established by our Constitution. In Article III of the Constitution, the Founders sought to guarantee an independent judiciary by providing for lifetime appointments. Harris had previously spoken favorably of her then-running mate Joe Biden’s proposed “reforms” to the Supreme Court, which included establishing term limits for the justices.
Before taking over at the top of the ticket for Democrats, Harris also reportedly told the New York Times she was “absolutely open to” packing the high court. Such “court packing” would consist of Congress first increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court and then a President Harris appointing several new justices.
As the constitution does not set the number of justices at nine, Democrat control of both Congress and the Executive Branch would allow for the Supreme Court to be reconstituted with members whose politics Harris favors. A court-packing plan, however, would destroy the independence of the judiciary on which our constitutional order depends.
- The Border
Our constitutional order also depends on a secure border, for no country can survive if it cannot — or will not — repeal an invasion. Yet, the Biden-Harris Administration has shown it has no regard for the citizens of this country, putting the interests of foreign aliens illegally entering the United States above those of Americans.
The massive influx of illegal aliens threatens our country in multiple ways, from the physical violence inflicted by criminals to potential threats from terrorists who enter through our porous border, to disease and overrun health care systems, to the financial devastation caused by the flood of migrants. And Harris promises more of the same, while Trump instead has committed to securing the border and deporting those here illegally.
For all their talk of Trump being a threat to democracy, Americans already experienced a Trump Administration, and not only did our country not crumble, it thrived. In contrast, the Biden-Harris Administration wrought skyrocketing inflation, a flood of illegal immigration, and a world at war. And when it comes to policies, it is those that Harris supports that promise to wreck our constitutional republic — not Donald Trump’s pledges to secure the border, stop the attack on free speech, and leave the courts alone.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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