Fear Is Not a Governing Philosophy

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Madison wrote that in Federalist No. 51, and the Constitution is built on its premise: power tempts, and the people should listen closely when the powerful say what they intend to do with it. Today’s Democrats are saying quite a lot.

On October 13 at the University of Chicago, Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan spoke of bringing “signature cases” against people who “enabled” President Trump. Then she turned to the young. “I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration?’” she said. She wants them to think “lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems I don’t want.” Her summary: “I want that deterrence message.”

Read that again. A sitting senator, a former intelligence officer, announced that she wants a twenty-two-year-old graduate to look at a job serving the elected President of the United States and see a prosecutor’s shadow.

Slotkin dismisses the backlash as “manufactured outrage” and insists she means only lawbreakers. But no one needs a “deterrence message” to keep young people from committing crimes. That is what the criminal code is for. A message aimed at the decision to serve at all is aimed at the lawful. And note the irony: she warns of a president who weaponizes justice, saying “if he can do it to me, he can do it to anyone,” while promising signature cases against the other side’s staff. Serving in a duly elected administration, of either party, is the civic bargain. Making it a hazard is intimidation, and it is anathema to the American idea.

We have seen how this ends. Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation did not establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Justice Department’s own inspector general found at least 17 significant errors and omissions in the surveillance applications targeting Carter Page, and said the Steele dossier “played a central and essential role.” John Durham found that the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on raw, uncorroborated intelligence, and an FBI lawyer pleaded guilty to altering an email in the surveillance process. The result was years of leaks, headlines, and a presidency under a cloud, built on a foundation that gave way.

Democrats then impeached President Trump twice in his first term, and they now insist they have learned restraint. Reuters reports that party aides say, “We’re not going into this to impeach,” and that “No one wants a failed vote on day one.” But the same aide warns that if investigations meet the threshold, “we will not hesitate.”

The leash is political arithmetic, not principle. And look at who they are already naming. Representative Robert Garcia, who would chair the House Oversight Committee, describes his target as the “Trump crime family.” He has already sent letters to Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Howard Lutnick, and he has pledged to examine Elon Musk’s conduct at DOGE. Representative Jasmine Crockett has said of Musk, “we can have him under oath.” Garcia has also put former officials such as Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski on his list of subpoenas, explaining, “Just because you’re no longer in the position doesn’t mean you don’t have critical information.” All have denied wrongdoing. The RNC calls it “a revenge agenda.” First the target, then the search for the crime.

Then there is the Supreme Court, and Democrats’ open appetite to reshape it. In 1937, the Senate Judiciary Committee killed Franklin Roosevelt’s plan, calling it “a measure which should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be presented.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed: “Nine seems to be a good number.” She warned that expansion means “one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges.’”

Yet in May, Kamala Harris listed “Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court” among ideas for her party, adding, “We gotta fight fire with fire.”

Senate candidates are following. Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan: “I believe that we should add additional seats to the Supreme Court.”

Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, asked if he favors expansion: “Yes, but fairly.” Hamilton, in Federalist No. 78, called the courts the least dangerous branch because they have “neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.” Packing converts that judgment into the spoils of whoever last won an election.

The same logic governs the maps. California Democrats passed Proposition 50, which tossed out a map drawn by an independent citizens commission and replaced it with one drawn by the Democratic legislature to win up to five more seats. A party that preaches about protecting democracy abandoned the one structure designed to stop politicians from picking their voters, and Virginia Democrats pushed a map of their own.

Finally, the ballot box itself. Confidence in American elections is fraying, and many on the right see the system as rigged and illegitimate. Doubt is a political fact, and the cures are cheap. Show an ID at the polls, and get your ballot in by Election Day. Voter ID is not a fringe demand. Pew finds that 83 percent of Americans support requiring government-issued photo ID to vote, including 71 percent of Democrats.

In 2005, a commission co-chaired by Jimmy Carter recommended a photo ID system to build public confidence. Yet when the House passed the SAVE America Act in February, Senate Democrats stalled it, and they blocked a standalone ID bill from Senator Husted on the floor. Chuck Schumer says “Democrats support commonsense voter ID,” but the votes tell a different story. The same goes for the calendar. In June, the Supreme Court held that states may count mail ballots that arrive up to five business days after Election Day. Roughly thirty states count some late ballots, Democratic-run Oregon among them. A result still trickling in days after the polls close invites suspicion, and the party whose slogan is “protect democracy” should be first to close that door. Instead, Democrats block ID legislation and leave the window open.

Madison did not bet on angels. He bet on limits: on courts that stay independent, on investigations that follow evidence, on citizens who can serve without being warned off. A party that treats investigations as a weapon, the courts as spoils, the maps as property, the young as targets, and public confidence in the ballot box as someone else’s problem is not preparing to govern. It is preparing to avenge. On November 3, voters will decide whether they want a government of laws or a government of deterrence messages.

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