Today’s gubernatorial recall vote in Wisconsin a short time after the most recent general election is just another reminder of how far the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson has strayed from its honorable roots. Founded as a reaction against the elitist ways of the we-know-what’s-best-for-you Federalists of the early Republic, the modern Democratic Party can’t stop telling Americans what to do.

Democrats are acutely mindful of Joseph Stalin’s aphorism that “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

Democrats did everything but orchestrate a coup d’etat in 2000 after Democratic presidential ticket Al Gore and Joe Lieberman won the (unimportant) popular vote but narrowly lost the (all-important) Electoral College vote to Republicans George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. While sales of “Sore Loserman 2000” tee-shirts surged, the nation held its breath for five weeks after Election Day as Democrat thugs and their allies in local governments across Florida tried to overturn the will of the people. During the selective recount the self-described champions of equality argued with a straight face that votes from some counties in Florida had to be treated differently than votes from other counties.

The relentless barrage of partisan propaganda continued until the process was mercifully shut down on equal protection grounds by a 7 to 2 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although Democrats continue to gripe about the Bush v. Gore decision to the present day (a belief in the decision’s wrongheadedness is virtually a required article of faith on the Left) they don’t allow bitterness to detract from their democracy-denying ways.

In the Democratic stronghold of California, the land of the ballot initiative, Democrats have worked tirelessly to undermine laws approved by electoral majorities in plebiscites when they contradict leftist dogma. Here follow just three examples. Long after the official votes took place Democrats took aim in courts, the state legislature, and municipal councils at proposition number 13 (1978, limits property taxes), number 209 (1996, state must be color-blind) and number 8 (2008, protects traditional marriage) all of which became law after being approved by the people of California.

Democrats love to count perhaps even more than a familiar “Sesame Street” character known for his fangs, monocle, and cape. If they don’t like the results, Democrats keep counting the votes over and over again until they get the result they want. They tally, calculate, and enumerate their way to victory whenever their candidate is within what columnist John Fund calls the “margin of ACORN.” (See U.S. Sen. Al Franken, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, to name just two recent examples.) With the help of radical financier George Soros they even created the Secretary of State Project to install state officers who would help rig elections for Democrats.

Democrats want the votes of everyone to count, from U.S. citizens to illegal aliens and lawfully disenfranchised felons. Corrupt Democratic election officials routinely expand the electorate, accepting votes from the under-aged and the dead. That’s why they collectively freak out when the topic of voter photo ID comes up, advancing the most ridiculous arguments against ID requirements. The poor, minorities, and the old are too dumb and frail to acquire photo ID – even though getting by without it is impossible in modern society.

The Democratic Party of today does not believe in democracy in the way the term is used in America. If Democrats win, it’s a fine example of democracy in action. If they lose, they claim that democracy has been undermined and usually some cabal of corporate villains in a smoke-filled backroom is to blame for the injustice. Democracy isn’t a fixed concept in the minds of Democrats: it’s whatever they say it is.

They don’t care that Americans were disgusted last year by the absconding Wisconsin state senators (Democrats) who fled in order to deprive the duly elected Republican majority of the quorum needed for passing legislation. The backlash against this anti-democratic stunt and against the government unions’ lavish compensation packages continues to build. Wisconsinites want their elected officials to balance the books, but the spendthrift unions won’t allow that to happen.

And so leading up to today’s vote, which is the second-most important election in America this year, the labor movement has been drowning Wisconsin in an ocean of out-of-state money aimed at getting Republican Scott Walker replaced by Tom Barrett. Barrett, now the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, is a longtime ally of government unions and radical groups like ACORN.

In a repudiation of the previous (Democratic) administration’s spendthrift ways, Walker was elected governor in 2010 on an extensively publicized, popular austerity platform. To help Walker rescue the state from a sea of red ink, voters made sure Republicans received clear majorities in both chambers of the deep blue state’s legislature.

Last year Gov. Walker enforced his electoral mandate after asking state lawmakers to vote on his proposals, which included curbing the power of government employee unions and making their members contribute a little more to their health plans.

In the end Walker got most of what he wanted even though Democratic lawmakers went into hiding and union militants tried to shut down the state capitol and prevent the legislature from conducting business. These are tactics one might expect to see from the Italian squadristi or German Sturmabteilung, both of which used physical coercion and intimidation to halt the democratic process.

In the weeks leading up to the recall vote today, Democrats and their thug allies have been trying to get in the faces of their opponents, including Gov. Walker himself.

As Commentary reports, “Walker revealed that his family has been subjected to various forms of intimidation tactics during the past year with his children and elderly parents being harassed at a supermarket. His children were also targeted on Facebook.”

It is all so nasty and unnecessary.

In a rare moment of candor Time magazine’s Joe Klein, usually a reliable member of the leftist echo chamber, pointed an accusing finger at his own side last year during the legislative showdown over Walker’s reforms:

But the Left can’t accept the results of the 2010 election in Wisconsin and so voters in America’s Dairyland will head to the polls today for the second time in 19 months.

Will Democrats and their confederates riot in the streets if Walker beats back the recall?

We’ll see.