In every election this century, Democrats have smeared Republicans as a party built on voter disenfranchisement. When Democrats lose, it is because Republicans have manipulated voter ID rules, registration requirements, or early and mail-in voting periods to suppress votes. Somehow, free IDs, lax registration requirements, weeks upon weeks of early voting, and rules that let able-bodied citizens vote from their couches are voter suppression and the cause of Democrats’ electoral losses.

Since Sunday, however, the mask has dropped. We now know which party has no qualms about disenfranchising as many voters as necessary to preserve or gain political power. In orchestrating President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the Democrat elite disenfranchised millions of voters across the country. Their calculations and machinations had the same effect as if they had taken every single ballot cast over the past six months and tossed them into the yawning depths of the Grand Canyon.

In place of the Democrat voters’ choice of Biden, the country will be offered Kamala Harris — a woman who has the endorsement of exactly zero voters to become president in 2024 and could not even finish within the top seven of the Democrat field in 2020.

Perhaps most shocking is how casual and callous leading Democrats have been in their voter suppression efforts. Biden announced that his supporters’ ballots would be disregarded in a post on X — the equivalent of ending a marriage through a text message. He did not explain himself. He did not even offer a photo of him signing the letter that was posted to X. In the moments that followed, leading Democrats did not decry this betrayal of voters nor express an ounce of sympathy for the fate of their ballots. Rather, within minutes, they showered Biden’s ready-made successor with unreserved endorsements and lavish praise.

We should be very clear about what has happened. At the outset, Democrat Party leaders and donors rigged their primary to dramatically and artificially limit the choices available to voters. Millions of voters, nevertheless, participated, stood up, and said, “We accept the choice you’ve given us — we choose Joe Biden.” And although Biden was insistent to the end that he wanted to run, Democrat Party leaders and donors got cold feet. So they simply nullified the voters’ choice by relentlessly badgering Biden to drop out, day and night, for three straight weeks, until he relented.

Since then, no Democrat, not even Biden, has seen any need at all to offer voters an explanation for what just happened. To this minute, neither Democrat Party leaders nor donors, to say nothing of Biden himself, have offered a single word as to why they have pursued a strategy of massive and unprecedented voter disenfranchisement. Is Biden too frail or too sick to continue? Did he suddenly lose the passion for public service he’s professed for over 50 years? Something else? No one has told the American people. Democrat leaders just said he had to go, and so he’s gone.

The lesson from all of this is that for Democrats, voters are not even an afterthought when it comes to governing this country. They are merely a begrudgingly necessary means to an end. When voters facilitate their power, Democrats sing hymns to the will of the people and the wisdom of “our democracy.” But when voters jeopardize their power, Democrats ignore the people entirely and scheme against them to maintain control at whatever cost. After Sunday, there can be no doubt of Democrats’ duplicity. They did all they could to undermine the people’s choice of George W. Bush. They have done even more to kneecap Donald Trump at every turn. Now, they’ve done it to one of their own. The pattern is unmistakable.

Of course, the American people deserve a prompt, comprehensive explanation from Biden. But broadly speaking, there are only two options. Either Biden has become incapable of campaigning, or he has become unwilling to campaign. Was his withdrawal a medical necessity, or simply a vulgar bid to salvage Democrat power undertaken at the expense of Americans’ sacred right to vote? Is it an act that necessitates his resignation, or a cowardly and craven act that is beneath contempt?

Under normal circumstances, we would know these answers already by way of Biden’s conduct. By staying in office, as he has so far, it would be safe to assume that he is healthy and was simply too afraid to press on against Donald Trump. Sadly, given all Democrats and legacy media have done over the past four years to cover up Biden’s obvious decline up through the first presidential debate and even thereafter, we cannot take that for granted.

But even if Biden is physically and mentally up for the job, his conduct threatens to inflict serious and lasting harm on our country. Presidential elections should be — and traditionally have been — years-long battles between competing visions for the fate of nations. If the Biden gambit takes hold, however, these contests could soon devolve into bait-and-switch gamesmanship, as parties wait for the right moment to spring their real candidates on the American people. And the candidates best positioned to succeed in such a system will not be those who offer bold visions for the future, but people like Kamala Harris, empty vessels through which the donors who control those games can exert their influence.

If the Democrats really wanted to “save democracy,” Biden, if healthy, would still be pressing forward with his campaign, trying to win on behalf of the millions upon millions of people who voted for him to do just that. But saving democracy is not, and has never been, the point. The point is, and always has been, about saving Democrats. That is why he’s out of the race. It is as simple and as ignoble as that.