Last week’s mayhem in Washington, the mendacious accusations of the Democrats notwithstanding, was not incited by President Trump. The wildly exaggerated “storming of the Capitol,” like the huge protest itself, was caused by the belief — shared by countless millions of Americans — that the voters no longer have any meaningful influence over the Washington establishment. This sense of powerlessness is by no means ameliorated when we see a small cadre of Big Tech oligarchs and the corporate media collude with the Democratic Party to crush dissent from “progressive” orthodoxy. Fortunately, Article V of the Constitution provides a legal remedy for the grotesque hubris of the Beltway ruling class that may prevent a genuine insurrection. Most Americans are familiar with the attempt by the Framers to create checks and balances between the branches of the federal government in order to prevent one of the three from gaining dominance over the other two. They were equally concerned by the possibility that the central government would contrive a way to gain a disproportionate amount of power over the states. This is why they reserved all power to the states not explicitly granted to the federal government. Yet their distrust of centralized power
Since last May, numerous Pennsylvanians have wanted Dr. Rachel Levine removed as health secretary for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. At the height of the COVID surge last spring, a number of politicians and pundits throughout the state called for Levine’s resignation because of the health secretary’s disastrous decision to move COVID-infected patients into Pennsylvania nursing homes, where the death rate exploded to levels worse than even in the state of New York. But Levine did not go. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, a cultural radical, refused to let Levine go. Instead, liberals rallied to Levine as nothing short of a transgendered hero being victimized by the brute sin of “relentless misgendering.” They sought to make Levine a martyr. Levine’s critics protested that their objections had nothing to do with “misgendering” Levine but rather with Levine misdirecting COVID patients into nursing facilities. Their objections fell on deaf ears — or at least Wolf’s deaf ears. Levine stayed. But alas, coming to the rescue of Pennsylvanians is an unlikely ally: President-elect Joe Biden. The day before his inauguration, Biden heralded a new era for “transgender” rights when he tapped Rachel Levine to be his incoming assistant health secretary. So Pennsylvanians’ demands that Levine
