Conservatives have long derided Democrats as the “party of government,” noting the party’s enthusiasm for government spending and programs. In recent years, campaign finance disclosures have shown that employees of every federal department, including Defense, give overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates. But President Barack Obama has taken the “party of government” one step further, turning the government into an arm of the Democratic Party, using federal agencies and taxpayer dollars to boost Democrats’ electoral prospects.
The latest example comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, which is launching a massive advertising campaign to promote Obamacare and encourage people to join state-based insurance exchanges. In a column in the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove notes that HHS is targeting twenty-one media markets across the country, but excluding many of the country’s largest. Instead, it is focusing its ad buy on Texas and other states where Democrats have decided to focus their electoral efforts to defend Senators and win governorships.
That news comes as Congress continues to investigate the IRS scandal, in which the most feared agency of the federal government targeted conservative groups that were most feared by the Obama campaign. An internal investigation was completed in 2012, but was withheld until long after the presidential election was over. Likewise, the State Department intimidated whistleblowers who knew the truth about the Benghazi terror attack, which happened during the election, while also quashing internal investigations into severe employee misconduct.
We are witnessing, under President Obama, the complete breakdown of the wall between party and state. The ambient left-wing tendencies of the bureaucracy–amplified by public-sector unions and by our nation’s education system–have been sharpened into partisan tools to refashion society in the Democratic party’s image and interest. To Democrats, that is not a scandal: they believe their party’s interest is the national interest, and the media largely agree. Yet it marks the start of a decay that, if not stopped soon, will destroy our system of government.