The most important headline of 2001 came on the last day. It was in the Washington Times and read: "Daschle defends 60-vote majority." Thus did Tom Daschle, Senate Majority Leader and Democrat from South Dakota, raise the ugly head of tyranny.

Daschle has decided that Republican issues along with President Bush's nominees to executive branch positions, unlike Democratic ones, are "controversial" and cannot be accepted on the basis of majority vote. A supermajority vote of 60 in the Senate is required for Bush to staff his government and pursue a legislative agenda.

The Democrats cannot yet declare the overthrow of majority rule.  Daschle's mechanism for requiring supermajorities to confirm Bush appointees and to pass Republican bills is the filibuster. The Democrats will talk nominees and bills to death unless 60 votes can be mustered to break their filibuster.

A Republican who said Democrat issues and appointees are too controversial to be passed by majority vote would be excoriated until he resigned from office. He would be labeled with every known epithet and henceforth be the bogyman invoked to drive Republicans out of politics.

But Daschle can say it without fear, because the Cultural Marxists who control the universities, the media, the bureaucracies and Hollywood agree with him. As the case of Bill Clinton made clear, anyone who stands on the issues with the Cultural Marxists cannot be held accountable no matter what the transgression.

Filibusters have been used when organized interests or regions of the country are strongly opposed to a piece of legislation. But they have never before been used by one party as a means of rendering a President unable to staff his offices and advance a legislative agenda.

When asked on Meet the Press (NBC, 12-30) if President Bush would be justified to make recess appointments, as the Senate has not voted on his appointees and Bush is beginning the second year of his presidency with his government's offices unfilled, Daschle replied: "That isn't the way it ought to be addressed."

This from the leader of the party that not only made recess appointments, but made them after the nominee had been rejected by the Senate and, illegally, made the temporary recess appointment permanent for the duration of the Clinton administration.

For example, Bill Lan Lee, an ideological true-believer in special privileges for "people of color" who abused the power of his Justice Dept. position to coerce unconstitutional racial quotas throughout the country, served a full term unconfirmed in office.

To Democrats, of course, Bill Lan Lee is not the least bit controversial. But the son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia opposed some ergonomic regulations that Clinton issued and Congress repealed. Such a controversial person as Eugene Scalia requires a supermajority to be appointed solicitor at the Dept. of Labor.

Once again Daschle has shown Republicans—and the country—that Democrats are not loath to use power illegitimately if it advances their agenda and renders Republicans impotent. Daschle has no fear that such extremism as imposing a supermajority on the rival political party's agenda will cause any defection from the Democrats' political base.

For Democrats, their ends justify any means. In contrast, Republicans lack sufficient confidence in what they supposedly stand for to effectively govern even when they are in a majority. As the distinguished British economist, Lord Peter Bauer put it, "Republicans are in office, but not in power."

The U.S. is on the verge of one party rule. Democrats believe fervently in their agenda and are willing to take risks in its behalf.  Republicans believe in scarcely anything but compromise. Obviously, the stronger will of the Democrats gives them the edge. Republicans are willing to stand up to Democrats only when Republicans have supermajorities behind them.

Republicans will never again have a supermajority. The Democrats have imported an electorate that supports them. Our country has been flooded with tens of millions of poor uneducated immigrants from Third World countries who vote Democrat because of the income support programs the party champions. Republicans represent taxpayers who are now outvoted by poor immigrants and special interest groups dependent on tax revenues.

Republicans stood aside for 35 years while Democrats used immigration to refurbish their political base for class warfare. Only next time around the warfare will be much nastier as the class differences are now racial differences.

Republicans will collapse, because whites have been demonized. In the demonology of Cultural Marxists who dictate the agenda of the Democratic Party, the "white race" is the real world equivalent to the Dark Lord Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

And, unlike Gandalf, Democrats don't believe that power corrupts.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author (with Lawrence M. Stratton) of The New Color Line : How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy

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