The US Constitution, by limiting federal power, is designed to protect the individual citizen from external coercion. “Man should not be in the service of society,” said philosopher Joseph Campbell. “Society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society,” Campbell warned, “you have a monster state, and that’s what is threatening the world at this minute.” The Democratic Party is behind it.

By supporting big government at the expense of the individual, Democrats threaten to transform America into a totalitarian nightmare. President Biden has declared that the “most lethal elements” in our society are political conservatives. In true Stalinist fashion, the DOJ, the FBI, and the media are being weaponized to go after Biden’s political opponents. Armed FBI agents raided the homes of Roger Stone, James O’Keefe, Paul Manafort and dozens of other Trump supporters, to say nothing of the raid on Mar-a-Lago. “The FBI is now an organization solely focused on destroying the domestic enemies of the Democratic Party,” said radio host Jesse Kelly. The implication is that if you distrust Biden’s government, you are considered a terrorist and must be hunted down.

Democrats will not hesitate to deprive you of your basic rights if it suits their purpose. In their war on free speech, Democrats have attempted to silence anyone who denies global warming, criticizes Islamic terrorism, advocates a stronger military, or questions the validity of the 2020 election. George Orwell, author of 1984, knew from personal experience how big government can trample all over individual rights. Orwell was particularly impressed by F.A. Hayek’s statement that “collectivism gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of.”

Orwell and Hayek agreed that liberty and security are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Big government, which makes a false promise of security, is capable of extinguishing liberty. Author Dennis Prager has argued that most people, to their detriment, prefer security over liberty. That explains why so many people vote for Democrats even when it is clear that they are voting against their own self-interest. “Sadly,” said Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt, “too few understand that exchanging all freedom for the promise of security ends in extreme poverty and mass casualties.”

The slide began with Obama’s eight-year assault on American values. We had a breather as Trump achieved a series of miracles to bring back the economy, control the southern border, put the Chinese in their place, strengthen the military, and ban Critical Race Theory. Trump’s miracles were rejected in favor of Obama-on-steroids in the form of the Biden administration.

How did a robot like Biden end up in the Oval Office? While we looked the other way, the Democratic Party was hijacked by Marxists, racists, and fascists whose aim is to destroy the status quo and replace it with a totalitarian socialist state run by accountable bureaucrats. Under the influence of these new Democrats, the US is on the road to a one-party state.

The Democratic Party’s ultimate alternative to democracy is socialism, where the government takes control of everything. “President Biden is committed to ensuring the government is in your life from cradle to grave,” said Rep. Chris Stewart, “no matter how much taxing and spending that requires.” Where will it lead? “[Biden’s] reckless spending programs have the potential to push the country toward another financial catastrophe,” wrote Justin Haskins in The Hill, “perhaps as soon as within the next year or two.”

Biden’s plan, warns Sen. Marco Rubio, is to Build Back Socialist. “This is the agenda of the leftist base that now controls the Democratic Party,” Rubio said. “These are the people who think America is a terrible country, that America is a country with a shameful history, a racist and unjust system.”

Democrat-sponsored legislation, said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, is designed to be “a takeover of the country in one vote. They want government control of your kids,” she said. “They want government control of health care. They want to demoralize the military, close the churches, destroy your faith in the American system.”

To achieve its diabolical ends, the Democratic Party has embraced violence as its modus operandi. “[Democratic Party] leaders from Barack Obama to Seattle Mayor Jenny ‘Summer of Love’ Durkan gave the green light to anarchy,” wrote Miranda Devine in The New York Post. With the complicity of Democratic mayors, governors, and district attorneys, the US has descended into rampant lawlessness. Police have been told to stand down and allow the violence to continue unabated. Prosecutors are more concerned with the rights of criminals than the rights of victims.

Whenever the Democrats are in power, they destroy everything they get their hands on. As Deroy Murdock said in The New York Post, Democrats are “wreaking havoc, division, and devastation. The Democratic Party has deteriorated into a clear and present danger to this republic.” They must be stopped.

“When those who are entrusted to enforce the law,” said author and Fox host Gregg Jarrett, “instead, abuse their power to pursue innocent people in the name of justice it is the worst kind of oppression.” The ongoing weaponization of government agencies and the courts in order to stop Donald Trump is the quintessence of such oppression.

The initial goal of this scheme was the protection from prosecution and the subsequent election of Hillary Clinton. We know from reading the emails of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that high-ranking members of the FBI were working behind the scenes to ensure Trump’s defeat in the 2016 election. When that failed, the Democrats launched the second step in their plan—the special counsel investigation run by Robert Mueller to prove Trump-Russia collusion.

When that failed, step three was put in motion—the assault on Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago and a nefarious barrage of phony indictments leveled against Trump and many of his supporters. The indictments are baseless. Questioning the outcome of an election is not a crime. “One of the election crimes Trump is charged with,” said Kurt Schlichter on Townhall, “is that he allegedly conspired to violate a civil right of American citizens. What right, you ask? Well, a convoluted version of the right to vote, which apparently he conspired to interfere with by insisting that elections be honest, transparent, and unrigged. No one else has ever been prosecuted for that.”

If successful, the indictments would put Trump in a jail cell for the rest of his life. This campaign amounts to a criminal conspiracy by Democrats to destroy the leading Republican contender for the 2024 nomination. It is an overt attempt to interfere with the outcome of a presidential election. Ironically, this is precisely the charge that the Democrats want to hang on Trump.

The Democrats have not recovered from Trump’s 2016 victory. As a political outsider sworn to “drain the swamp,” Trump scares the pants off the Washington elite. They will do anything to protect their lucrative rackets, whether their tactics are legal or not. Meanwhile, Biden is getting away with the worst corruption ever perpetrated by an American president.

Along with Biden, a guilty cast of characters is going free—Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, James Comey, Susan Rice, John Brennan, Barack Obama, and others. Gregg Jarrett has spelled out their crimes in agonizing detail. Why haven’t they been investigated? The answer: the guilty parties are the same corrupt people who run the justice system. For justice to prevail, they would be required to investigate themselves.

One consequence of the anti-Trump cabal is the loss of confidence by the American public in our system of justice. The public understands that we have a double standard. Justice and fair play do not apply to conservatives and Trump supporters.

Let’s do a little pretending. You are living in East Germany in 1960. Stasi, the repressive secret police, have arrested you and threatened that if you don’t testify against someone they want to condemn, you will spend the next 40 years behind bars and the state will go after your spouse, your children, and your beloved dog Fido. Ah, but you say, “This is America. That could never happen here.” Well guess what, this used to be the land of the free. The quaint notion that we benefit from due process has evaporated along with Cinderella’s ball gown and fancy coach.

Thanks to our politicized justice system, General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Dinesh D’Souza and now President Trump have seen their lives destroyed because of their political opposition to the corrupt Democratic Party. If the powers of government can be weaponized to sabotage a former president, what perversion of justice can be directed at you and me?

Former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, author of Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice, described a justice system consisting of out-of-control prosecutors who will do anything to get a conviction. She has been proven correct in a way she never anticipated. Powell is one of the Trump supporters targeted by the Democrat-fueled indictments. Goodbye USA, hello Stasi. If you refuse to support Biden, we will destroy you, your family, and your dog.

It’s the sort of thing we would expect to happen in North Korea. A venal gang of Obama alumni is getting away with a perversion of American justice. When a government doesn’t have a crime but starts a campaign to find one, that’s called a police state. Unless the anti-Trump indictments are quashed and we address the real scandal in our government—corruption in the Oval Office, DOJ, FBI, and IRS—we can kiss the American system of justice goodbye.

Ed Brodow (www.edbrodowpolitics.com) is a conservative political commentator and author of two No. 1 Amazon Best Sellers, AMERICA ON ITS KNEES: The Cost of Replacing Trump with Biden, and THE WAR ON WHITES: How Hating White People Became the New National Sport.