Democrats spent four years calling Trump a threat to democracy.
Now one of their top strategists just went on taxpayer-funded PBS and called the Constitution itself the problem.
And he had a name for every constitutional institution standing between Democrats and permanent power.
The Democrat Who Wanted to Run the DNC Just Called for Abolishing the Electoral College
Ben Wikler is the former chairman of the Wisconsin Democrat Party, the man Nancy Pelosi backed to run the entire DNC earlier this year, and the author of a new left-wing political manual, This Is the Plan.
The book's cover features a fire extinguisher. America is burning, and only Democrats can save it.
PBS host Michel Martin handed Wikler 18 uninterrupted minutes on Amanpour and Company this week. Martin asked zero challenging questions. Her final question was literally: "What's the plan?"
Wikler's three-step blueprint is a wish list from a party that lost and decided the rules were the problem.
Step one: elect Democrats in 2026 at the state level to control election administration before 2028.
Step two: win the White House, the House, and the Senate in 2028.
Step three: use that power to dismantle every constitutional safeguard standing between Democrats and permanent control.
The list of targets is long. End the filibuster. Proportional representation in the House – requiring a constitutional amendment. Supreme Court term limits – requiring a constitutional amendment. D.C. statehood – unconstitutional without an amendment.
And an interstate compact to install the national popular vote winner as president, bypassing the Electoral College without touching the Constitution's text.
Wikler described these changes, taken together, as dismantling "the system of control that the right has imposed on the country over a period of decades."
That system of control is the United States Constitution.
https://twitter.com/alexchristy17/status/2088317983093305441
What the National Popular Vote Compact Would Actually Do to Red States
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is not a minor procedural tweak. Under the scheme, states would be required to hand their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner – regardless of how their own residents cast ballots.
The Heritage Foundation has identified it as an unconstitutional end-run around Article II. The Center for Renewing America called it "a backdoor attempt to rewrite the Constitution without amending it."
A state that voted 60-40 for one candidate would send its electoral votes to the other because coastal population centers ran up the score.
Wikler's words confirm the intent. He called the Electoral College a "sideshow." He claimed the Supreme Court "only strikes down laws and executive actions when they're done by Democrats" – a claim that is flatly false and one Martin let pass without comment.
The Founders designed these institutions deliberately. James Madison warned that pure democracies are "incompatible with personal security and the rights of property."
The Electoral College, the Senate structure, the independent judiciary – these exist to prevent exactly the kind of majority mob rule Wikler is selling as reform.
Why PBS Was the Perfect Platform After Democrats Lost the Electoral College Twice
Trump signed an executive order in May 2025 directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end federal funding for NPR and PBS, calling government-subsidized media "corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence."
Democrats called it an attack on a free press. Three months later, Congress passed the Rescissions Act of 2025 and stripped $1.1 billion in previously allocated CPB funding.
PBS is now running a Democrat Party book tour – a 2026 midterm organizing manual dressed up as journalism – on its own dime, without a dollar of federal support, and without a single editorial standard in sight.
The host did not challenge one claim. She thanked Wikler for his time.
Wikler, meanwhile, is exploring a 2028 Senate run in Wisconsin. Sources close to him told NBC News his book tour was a dry run for a statewide campaign.
PBS just handed a potential Democrat Senate candidate 18 uninterrupted minutes to argue the Constitution is the problem.
This episode is a prime example of why PBS was stripped of its taxpayer funding.
Sources:
- Alex Christy, "PBS Hints Constitution Is 'The System of Control That the Right Has Imposed' on U.S.," NewsBusters, August 14, 2026.
- "The National Popular Vote: Misusing an Interstate Compact to Bypass the Constitution," The Heritage Foundation.
- "The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: A Backdoor Attempt to Rewrite the Constitution Without Amending It," Center for Renewing America, July 2026.
- "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media," White House Presidential Actions, May 1, 2025.
- "Blackburn Introduces Bill to End Taxpayer Funding for NPR and PBS," U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, June 11, 2025.
- Natasha Korecki and Adam Edelman, "Democrat Ben Wikler Explores a 2028 Run for Senate in Wisconsin," NBC News, July 2026.
