I keep thinking some day, Democrats with ethics alarms and functioning cerebral cortexes are going to wake up, slap themselves sharply in the face, and shout, “This entire party is based on lies, deception, and hypocrisy! What the hell have I been doing?”

If today’s New York Times story titled “Democrats Prepare Aggressive Counter to Third-Party Threats” doesn’t have that effect, however, I wonder if anything will.

Since the Times here is carefully trying to inform readers about an organized effort by their readers favorite party that should be received as an indictment on its face, the article proceeds as if there are legitimate arguments pro- and con. “An army of lawyers aims to challenge the steadily advancing ballot-access efforts of independent candidates, who Democrats fear could peel votes away in swing states,” begins the Times. “The aim ”is to ensure all the candidates are playing by the rules, and to seek to hold them accountable when they are not,’ “the Times explains quoting one of the leaders of the party’s efforts. It doesn’t mention that this is pure deceit, as the paper has already explained the motivation for the assault on ballot access:

The Democratic Party, increasingly alarmed by the potential for third-party candidates to swing the election to former President Donald J. Trump, has put together a new team of lawyers aimed at tracking the threat, especially in key battleground states. The effort comes as challengers — including the independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West plus groups like No Labels as well as the Green Party — have ramped up their push to qualify for states’ ballots ahead of critical deadlines in the spring and summer….It amounts to a kind of legal Whac-a-Mole, a state-by-state counterinsurgency plan ahead of an election that could hinge on just a few thousand votes in swing states… [F]ears among Democrats are particularly acute this year, with polls suggesting that Mr. Trump’s base of support is much more fixed than Mr. Biden’s, meaning it’s possible that some of the president’s voters could be open to an alternative.

Oh no! Can’t have that…voters having an alternative choice on their November ballots other than loose-cannon Donald Trump and a mentally fading octogenarian whose policies on all fronts have metaphorically crashed and burned. The way to save democracy is to limit voters choices!

Wait…what?

“Independent candidates and third-party leadership see restrictive ballot laws, and efforts to monitor and enforce them,” the Times says, “as anti-democratic, exemplifying the kind of two-party political machinations they say they are trying to combat.”

Of course they do, because that’s exactly what they are. It is amazing that the Democrats can launch this effort without making every member of the party wear bags over their heads in abject shame, because the entire party’s leadership has hammered at the false assertion that Republicans are trying to block “access to voting” and are an existential threat to democracy for years. In the Democrat’s warped definition of blocking access to the ballot, making sure that voters are who they claim to be, are citizens, and are the ones casting their own votes rather than letting operatives fill in thousand of mail-on ballots and stick them in a drop-box where the scam is undetectable is somehow a “threat.”

But what is more clear-cut assault on democracy than setting out to limit voters’ choices before a Presidential election where both parties are going to nominate objectively terrible candidates? “What are ballot access barriers? They are barriers against free speech,” Ralph Nader told the Times.

Of course. The hypocrisy on display is stunning. Do those who support this free speech-phobic, anti-democratic party not see this, or do they just not care?