The campaign trail is where Democrats compete to see who can sound the most like a stoner college freshman — one who just read The Communist Manifesto, and exclaimed “Man, was I blown away!” They promise free college tuition, citizenship for every foreigner, blue skies, driverless cars, green energy and free, easy abortions which no one will ever regret.

They paint the Utopia on offer in broad strokes and primary colors. If only they can gain the power to smash the dark conspiracy of wicked racists, polluters, bible-thumpers and incipient school shooters who stand in the way. It’s just one vote away, those Big Rock Candy Mountains,

… a land that’s fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day.
On the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees.
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

In Democrat Cities, It’s a Hacienda or Hell

But if you want to know what Democratic governance is really like? Then you need to live in one of the cities they’ve been running for decades. Like Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco. Unless you sit at the tiny tip of the super-rich pyramid, your streets are unsafe. And full of homeless people, encamped in public places, spreading the plague. Your public hospitals are crowded with illegal immigrants. So are your public schools.

Private citizens can’t defend themselves. Nor afford the armed guards and gated haciendas that protect the city’s elite. Your taxes keep going up, but services keep getting worse. Every new government measure seems to punish the folks in the middle. Meanwhile those at the tippy-top assure themselves they’re helping those at the bottom.

The Democrat Inquisition

Another way to experience in advance how Democrats would govern the country? Get yourself prosecuted by one of them. Not everyone can be Carter Page, General Mike Flynn, or George Papadopoulos. Most of us won’t attract the attention of Deep State Stasi trying to thwart the will of the voters.

Nor are most of us likely to end up like the executives at Arthur Anderson. That firm was viciously targeted by Democrat prosecutors out of control, as part of the Enron case. The brilliant and principled attorney Sidney Powell documented the lawless behavior of elite federal prosecutors. Steel your nerves and read her real-life horror story, Licensed to Lie. You might have seen her talk about it on Fox News. She’s now leading the defense for the railroaded General Flynn.

Planned Parenthood Owns the Party

If you really, really want to know what life will be like under complete Democrat control? Then you need to be an ordinary American who pokes the 800-pound gorilla that owns and operates the Democratic Party. You need to attack Planned Parenthood.

That’s what Catholic pro-lifer David Daleiden learned. He embarked on an ambitious grass-roots project of journalism. Lila Rose of Live Action had already documented a long list of abuses by that powerful, rich organization. She’d exposed, on video, the willingness of Planned Parenthood clinics to do each of the following.

• Help men sexually exploiting girls to cover their crimes.
• Aid men sex-trafficking immigrant girls.
• Advise women on how to evade laws protecting late-term fetuses.
• Take money from people who asked that it only be used to abort black babies.
• Offer abortions aimed at destroying only unborn girls.

Plus many other abuses.

David Daleiden wanted to find out something different. He wondered if Planned Parenthood was already violating the laws that forbid abortionists from selling baby parts for profit. So he embarked on an elaborate undercover investigation. He set up a phony baby-parts business. He used it to infiltrate the shadowy, grim world where abortion doctors make back-room deals with medical research companies.

Fusion GPS and Its Lie Factory

You might already have seen some of the disturbing videos Daleiden produced, using honest footage of abortionists boasting about “buying a Lamborghini” or speaking clinically of packing eyes and lungs in Styrofoam coolers to maintain freshness. For a list of all 14 videos that have been released, with links to each of them, see this LifeNews story.

Planned Parenthood had learned from the impact of Rose’s videos, and its spin machine was ready. It hired Fusion GPS (of the Trump dossier infamy) to issue a fake report claiming that the videos were “doctored.” That was enough of a fig leaf for most media and lawmakers to ignore them.

Sending Dissidents to Prison

But Planned Parenthood wasn’t finished. Its leaders knew that their organization was permanently vulnerable to exposure for its actions. So they chose to send a message, and send Daleiden to jail. In addition to filing a massive civil suit, the organization pressed its political allies in California to start a criminal case. They called on the state Attorney General then, Kamala Harris, who’d received $81,000 in campaign cash from Planned Parenthood. As Daleiden told The Stream back in January:

Planned Parenthood specifically instructed Kamala Harris’ office as to what they wanted. Namely, all of my video recording footage and equipment seized. It played out as it had with every aspect of this selective and discriminatory prosecution. Kamala Harris was happy to put the powers of her office at the service of Planned Parenthood.

…

She personally met with six Planned Parenthood executives two weeks before the raid on my home. That included multiple witnesses in the sham investigation against me. She discussed at the meeting both Planned Parenthood’s political agenda and the issues in the investigation. We have the documents to prove it.

The thin reed on which this criminal case hangs? The claim that the restaurants and hotel lobbies where Daleiden made the recordings don’t count as public places. So his recordings violated the abortion giant’s right to privacy.

A Politicized Trial

The one-party state of California has conducted the prosecution like a political trial in a totalitarian country. Imagine a Polish citizen suing the Communist Party in 1975. Lifenews reports:

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office switched the order of witnesses in an apparent attempt to interfere with the defense, who had been preparing for a different witness. He switched the order at the request of the abortion giant.

Planned Parenthood also prevailed on Twitter to censor Daleiden’s group, the Center for Medical Progress, with false claims about its reports. (After an appeal, Twitter backed down.)

The state seems to be struggling to prove its case. Solid evidence and testimony keeps emerging that the abortion industry figures in the videos were speaking in public places. (And hence had zero expectation of privacy.) Stay tuned to the trial by following the Center for Medical Progress on Twitter. Or read the reports by the defense counsel here. And please keep the Center for Medical Progress and its people in your prayers.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream, and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration.