Democrats Embrace Political Radicalism the People of Chile Rejected

A soldier stands guard inside a school used as a trial vote polling station ahead of the Sept. 4 constitutional referendum in Santiago, Chile, on Sept. 2, 2022. The sign reads 'Constitutional Referendum 2022.' Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

Commentary

Chile just refused to ratify the “most progressive constitution ever written,” and it wasn’t even close. Voters rejected radicalism by an overwhelming 62 to 38 percent, with the poor and indigenous populations voting no in greater numbers than the well-off. Good for them. Chile’s future would have been in direct peril had the constitution been ratified.

Too bad many Americans lack the same common sense. Sad to say, many of the proposals rejected by Chileans are mainstream policy prescriptions within our ever-more-extreme Democratic Party. And that presents a peril to this country that we cannot ignore.

Abortion Absolutism

Let’s start with the left’s most sacred cow. The rejected charter would have guaranteed access to “the voluntary interruption of a pregnancy.” The details would have been worked out by legislation, but such open-ended language would seem to be unlimited as to time of gestation or reason for wanting to end a fetus’s life. This isn’t surprising. Abortion absolutism has become a litmus test of progressive thinking. Hence, legislation passed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives that would mandate a similar approach as that proposed for Chile via federal fiat.

Meanwhile, America’s bluest states—such as Vermont, Colorado, and California—have enacted abortion laws that allow for no limitations on abortion. Indeed, in strikingly similar language to Chile’s rejected charter, Vermont’s law states, “Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry a pregnancy to term, give birth to a child, or to have an abortion.”

Gender Identity

Chile’s constitution would have guaranteed the right to gender identity and for medical interventions that accommodate transgender patients.

The Democratic Party has similarly swallowed radical transgender ideology whole—to the point that activists and elected officials use such defeminizing terms as “people who menstruate” instead of “women.” More insidiously, the Biden administration pushes “gender-affirming care” for children—which can include puberty blocking, mastectomies of teenage girls, even “bottom” surgery of underaged individuals—as if these radical and even mutilating interventions were no more controversial than setting a broken leg.

Biden has also insisted that transwomen—that is, biological males—be allowed to compete in women’s sports, even those such as swimming and track and field in which physical strength is a primary factor in success. As a result, women have lost scholarships and other prizes they would have won but for the competition of the transgender athletes, as well as sometimes being forced to shower with transwomen who retain their male genitalia.

‘Progressive Autonomy’ of Children and Adolescents

The Chilean constitution would have essentially emancipated children from parental control in a wide variety of areas. Similarly, Democrats support policies in which children can obtain abortions, contraceptives, gender-affirming care, and even some forms of psychiatric treatment without parental notification or consent.

Democrats in the most liberal enclaves, such as Berkeley, California, have sought to lower the voting age to 16 for school board races. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has repeatedly supported reducing the federal voting age to 16.

Mandatory Gender Parity

The Chilean Constitution would have created a quota system based on sex, requiring that at least half of the seats in government and public bodies be held by women. Democrats have flirted with the same kind of quota schemes.

For example, laws passed in California and Washington established minimum standards for the number of women who had to be named to publicly traded companies’ boards of directors. Another California law requires minimum LGBT membership on boards. (Both laws in California were recently declared to be unconstitutional by different courts, decisions that Democrat state officials are likely to appeal.)

Multi-Cultural Welfare State

Chile’s constitution would have officially declared the country to be a “welfare state” that would be “pluri-national” and “ecological.” Sound familiar? Democrats are ever on about multicultural issues, “equity” (as opposed to equality), and radical correctives to a supposed crisis of white supremacy.

The party also seeks to inculcate radical environmentalism as the quasi-state religion, toward the end of achieving “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. The consequences of these views are already clear. A heat wave has threatened rolling blackouts in California as the United States devolved from being an energy exporting country two years ago to again being dependent on foreign sources of energy.

‘Death With Dignity’

The rejected Chile constitution would have established “death with dignity” as a fundamental right. That term is generally a euphemism for assisted suicide and euthanasia, sometimes also called “medical aid in dying.”

Legalizing assisted suicide is also a mainstream agenda item for the left generally and many Democrats specifically. Indeed, the nine states that have legalized assisted suicide by statute in this country—such as California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and New Jersey, along with Washington, D.C.—are among the most Democrat in the country.

Radical Environmentalism

Chile’s rejected constitution would have granted human-type rights to “nature” and declared the country to be an “ecological” state. It would have banned the private ownership of waterways.

The Democratic Party’s environmental position is nearly as radical. The Green New Deal would inhibit private use of resources and squelch natural resource extraction, and Florida’s Democratic Party has gone so far as to include “nature rights” in its official platform.

Doing Away With the Senate

The defunct proposal in Chile would have done away with the Chilean Senate to give most of the political power to its Chamber of Deputies (akin to our House of Representatives)—thereby reducing checks and balances over proposals driven by public passion.

Similarly, many Democrats complain that the U.S. Senate is “undemocratic” because small states have equal representation with big states, and otherwise want to eliminate checks and balances in government such as the Senate filibuster and the Electoral College.

Chilean voters displayed great wisdom by saying a loud “No!” to the radicalism of its proposed constitution. For that country, it’s back to the drawing board to find a more moderate political course.

Alas, for us, the fever of progressivism is growing hotter, evidenced by the Democratic Party’s embrace of many of the same woke proposals the people of Chile rejected. And that presents us with a cautionary tale. If Democrats as currently constituted gain unfettered political control, our nation could be transformed into the kind of progressive dystopia that the people of Chile saw coming—and from which they beat a hasty retreat.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.