Are the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) trying to visit tyranny on the United States? Evaluating their new platform, you’d have to say yes if heeding a warning from James Madison, “father of the Constitution.” He famously said in The Federalist, No. 47:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
This, too, is essentially what the DSA’s new platform would establish. As Fox News reported Friday:
According to a source familiar with the DSA’s planning, the organization plans to roll out an update next week to its long-term vision for a U.S. policy platform. The update includes eliminating the U.S. Senate and replacing the president and the Supreme Court with an executive branch and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.
So to be clear, the DSA’s platform would undermine the Constitution’s prescribed balance of powers. It would enable a one-chamber Congress (no Senate) to appoint a president and judges who are rubber stamps for its agenda.
Under our current system, the president is, of course, chosen by the people. He then can nominate judges, who subsequently must be confirmed by citizen-elected senators before taking the bench. Moreover, Congress is already the most powerful branch, as the House can impeach the president and judges. The Senate can then vote to convict, giving the legislature capacity to remove such officials from office. The other two branches have no such power over Congress.
But the DSA would expand this power precipitously. Its plan would, in a de facto sense, place “all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary” in Congress’ hands. And it’s irrelevant that those “hands” are “elective” (as Congress is), as Madison stressed.
Many would point out that this moves us closer to a parliamentary system, as exists in Britain and Canada. Others would take an even darker view. As a top Yahoo!news commenter writes, responding to the Fox article:
Once you get this enacted, and the socialists are in power, they will NEVER relinquish it. Ever.
A single chamber “congress” will be, by definition, a one party body that will rubber stamp policies of the party.
The model for this is the Soviet Union.
The respondent is alluding to the USSR’s Politburo (Political Bureau), the fallen communist empire’s top decision-making body.
Hellbound and Down 