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The left, completely in control of the Democratic Party and in perfect unison with mass media, Big Tech and the woke corporate conglomerates, is aggressively doing everything possible to make America into a one-party, authoritarian state.
The Biden government, acquiring every day more characteristics of a regime than of a presidency, is the ideal vehicle for leftism to make the United States less free and more in the image of 21st-century socialism. The latest front in this liberticide endeavor is the proposal to appropriate two permanent Senate memberships seats to the Democrat’s tally.
On Monday, March 22nd, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the issue for granting the District of Columbia (District) statehood and officially motorized the H.R. 51, also known as the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, into legislative action. The Senate has a companion version, S.B. 51. This is not the first attempt at affording the home of the nation’s capital the status of being a state. In fact, this has been an ongoing campaign, on the part of Democrats, to garner statehood for the District and tactfully pick up two senate seats and one for the lower chamber. All previous attempts have failed.
This time, the left is going all out and spearheading this charge by amplifying its claims for statehood legitimacy premised on perceived civil rights discrimination and “social justice” grievance claims that are underlined by Critical Race Theory (CRT). This point has been clearly established by some proponents like Stasha Rhodes, campaign manager for the movement 51 for 51, a DC state advocacy group. “From our perspective”, cites Rhodes, “leaving 700,000 mostly Black and brown residents without a vote in Congress is racism.” “This is an injustice”, she added, “and honestly, a stain on American democracy.”
The cultural Marxist CRT punch line blazing the District statehood rationale could not be passed up by the left, given all the dividends that Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other communist insurrectionists have gained from the CRT diatribe.
Federalist No. 43, penned by James Madison, made clear the Framer’s logic for establishing the nation’s capital within a territorial realm of autonomy, not conflicted with a state’s interests. The business of carrying out the functions of the federal government was not to be entangled with the intricacies of any particular state. Madison reflected the will and collective wisdom of the Founding Fathers on this point.
The “representation” factor for District residents was clearly contemplated, by the Federalist co-writer (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) and subsequent 4th president, to have been satisfactorily met by the proximity of the District’s inhabitants to Congress and the office of the President. The left’s “no taxation without representation” argument for the District’s residents is folly and downplays the Framer’s sagacity on this issue. The fact that two states, Maryland and Virginia, ceded territory in 1790 to the federal government so that the District could be founded, adds prescience to the needed separation of legal status between a state and the nation’s capital.
The clarity offered in the Federalist Papers solidly contradicts the left’s pretense for District statehood. Additionally, the Constitution presents a host of hurdles to the Democratic dream of obtaining a de facto lifetime two-member appointment to the Senate. Article I, Section 8, grants Congress with oversight responsibilities for the District. There would be an issue of a constitutional abrogation of power, if the District were to acquire state status. The 23rd Amendment is another obstacle for the Democrats. This 1961 addition to the Constitution delineated greater specificity to the District’s legal condition and the rights of its residents. The notion of the District becoming a state seems constitutionally unfeasible if the 23rd Amendment stands.
Rasmussen Reports conducted a poll between February 22nd and 23rd and it found that 55% of Americans oppose statehood for the District. This reflects a historic pattern that appears to conclude that the conversion of the nation’s capital into a state does not enjoyed popular support. Left-wing support NGO’s, like Data for Progress and Democracy for All 2021 Action, have been lauding faux surveys alleging support for the District’s statehood. Such “polls”, however, lack credibility and convey a preset agenda promotion format.
D.C. becoming a state is all about moving forward in the left’s confection for monolithic political control. True to the core of leftism and Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, the move to make America socialist is functionally embedded in this grotesque scheme structured to annul the Framer’s design of the American Republic. This is truly a war: the leftist elites versus the American people.
Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.