Democrat political leaders like to scold their political opponents with a finger-wagging “that’s not who we are.” Barack Obama coined that phrase in harshly criticizing his predecessor’s treatment of terrorists captured in Iraq; Joe Biden often uses the same words to chastise the GOP on matters such as election reform and racial justice.

Despite the patronizing tone, their underlying advice is sound. We should never stop trying to live up to our core American values.

But we don’t always walk the talk, and sometimes we miss by a mile. A few examples:

• Americans revere our form of government. The foundational principle of our democratic republic is that ours is a government of, by and for the people. For 235 years, we’ve been working to keep that principle front and center in all of our undertakings.

But the president and others are now peddling the notion that American democracy is in peril, threatened by GOP actions such as supposedly vote-suppressing election laws (there have been record turnouts in this season’s primary races) and even by fomenting “insurrection.”

Ironically, it is Democrat leaders who continue to advocate actions such as abolishing the Senate filibuster and packing the Supreme Court — steps that would effectively silence the voices of their political opponents and the Americans who elected them.

• In our democratic republic, an independent judiciary is essential to balance and, when necessary, to check the excesses of the executive and legislative branches. But our leaders undermine that judicial independence by openly weighing in on pending Supreme Court decisions.

Following the unprecedented leak of a draft SCOTUS ruling on Roe v. Wade, both White House and congressional Democrat leadership voiced scathing criticism of the court’s potential reversal of a supposedly sacred precedent, while simultaneously showing passive indifference (i.e., tacit endorsement) to the intimidating and potentially dangerous tactics of abortion activists.

The threat metastasized; last week, the FBI apprehended an armed assailant outside of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home.

• Freedom of speech is a quintessentially American trait. We speak our mind without fear of retribution, a right that is both enshrined in the Constitution and baked into the American DNA.

But suddenly we find ourselves swamped in a sea of effective censorship — so-called “cancel culture” — enforced unofficially by Big Tech, and with guidance from the administration about what Americans citizens should and should not see. Anything deemed undesirable is labeled “disinformation” and promptly buried.

• Americans rightly expect nothing less than equal justice under the law. But the Biden administration Department of Justice (DOJ) often delivers just the opposite.

Every individual who set foot in the U.S. Capitol Building last January 6th — even the many who strolled in under the watchful eyes of the Capitol Police — has been hunted down and prosecuted, while so-called “peaceful protesters” of 2020 who attacked police officers, burned down buildings, causing dozens of deaths and billions in damages, have been largely ignored.

And why is it that the DOJ charges many J6 defendants with “attempting to interfere with government process” (in that case, election certification), while taking no action against those who do essentially the same thing by illegally demonstrating at the private homes of conservative Supreme Court justices in order to head off an undesired Court ruling?

More “not who we are” behavior — government telling people what to think — surfaced in last Thursday’s two-hour televised presentation by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

It was political theater — a made-for-TV production, part of a well-orchestrated and well-timed (there’s a midterm election coming up) crescendo of January 6th “insurrection” messaging. Evidently deemed vital for every American to see, it was broadcast in prime time by all the major networks (save the recalcitrant Fox News) and met with glowing applause from friendly media. Dare we call it propaganda? Is that who we are?

Nothing in that performance (nor expected in subsequent ones) changes what we’ve known for a year and a half. January 6th was no insurrection — it was a violent, disgraceful riot. Intended or not, Donald Trump’s personal fury at the election results fueled that riot, and his failure to try to extinguish it was inexcusable. But at no time was there any possibility that the unarmed blowhards would somehow manage to overthrow the United States government and keep Trump in office.

America would be better served in Democrat leadership would resist the urge to turn January 6th into a political opportunity. And on the Right, we too must live up to our values. We are not insurrectionists, and we should have no tolerance for violent riots. It’s not who we are.