The Democrats’ fear of the coronavirus, coupled with their fear of another “armed insurrection,” has caused them to drastically dial back the attendance numbers for tomorrow’s inauguration of Joe Biden. Thus, an event typically attended by 200,000 will tomorrow be attended by around 1,000.

This seems both a shame and a shameful capitulation by the Democrats – especially given that the Wuhan flu has a better-than-99.9% survival rate for those under 70, and given that the “armed insurrection” of January 6 was the most peaceful and the least effective insurrection in history.

At the same time, our nation’s capital is now hosting some 26,000 National Guard troops from all across the nation — which seems like an awful lot of force for such a sparsely attended event.

But as we think about it, 1,000 attendees sounds about right, given the well-documented difficulty that Biden has in drawing a crowd. This should lend comfort to the Nervous Nellies who’ve committed to attend, because it means that the ratio of National Guard protectors to Democrat protectees will be about 26 to 1, which also sounds about right. After all, we wouldn’t want even the slightest show of patriotic dissent during the swearing in of the oldest, most corrupt, and least compelling president in modern history.

But sending so many National Guard troops to our nation’s capital isn’t without its own risks — especially given how many of them are white males and therefore murderous Trump loyalists.

What’s that? You didn’t hear Democrat Representative Steve Cohen’s dire warning about our Guard’s demographics and its racially motivated disposition? The vast majority of them are males, he says, and white ones at that. And given that only about “20%” of white males voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, many of these American Patriots are probably poised to carry out Armed Insurrection 2.0. They “would be the large class of folks who might want to do something,” he says ever so greasily.

What a disgraceful smear this is, and what a disgrace Cohen is to the great state of Tennessee. His apology and resignation can’t come soon enough, but neither ever will. After all, being a Democrat means never having to say you’re sorry and never having to worry about being censored.

As for the overwhelming presence of the Guard — a greater presence than that which guarded DC during the riots that followed Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968 — Fox News’s Tucker Carlson suggests there’s more to it than mere safety and protection. He says our Beltway betters are sending us a message — a message about power:

We’re in charge now. We run this nation, from Honolulu to our colony in the Caribbean and everywhere in between, very much including where you and your family live. Do not question us men with guns. We control the Pentagon.

Apparently, we’ve sent Guardsmen there from every state in the union as well as a smattering of mission-critical troops from Puerto Rico. Why? So that each state can now demonstrate its fealty to our newly Democrat national government? So that each state can take part in a symbolic (albeit fake) show of unity?

“In the meantime,” Carlson continues, “you’ve got to wonder what the Guardsmen themselves think of all of this. Serving in the National Guard is not easy work. Guardsmen aren’t paid much. Some, you’ve got to imagine, are doing it for love of country. Now, they’ve been deployed to their country’s own capital city and they’ve been given orders to shoot their fellow Americans if necessary. That’s a lot to ask. Now, on top of all of that, they’ve been told that if they were born a certain way, if they’re white and male and therefore evil and dangerous, they themselves are under suspicion of being the enemy. They’re potential killers, assassins, betrayers of a nation.”

“Democracy,” said H.L. Mencken, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Ours is a republic, not a democracy. But we’re about to find out how right Mencken was.