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Of course. They're doing it now. Human beings leverage fear in the pursuit of power. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. This is part of the natural order of things, just as dogs eat meat.
Remember the wisdom of failed Chicago mayor and now ABC Democratic TV talking head Rahm Emanuel, who said: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
The coronavirus pandemic has given Democrats an opportunity to do what they could not do before. They stuffed the coronavirus relief bill with Nancy Pelosi-approved pork, pushing the cost of the relief package into the trillions of dollars.
And now the Democratic push is on to leverage the next coronavirus aid package, "Phase 4" as it's being called, to force all states into the vote-by-mail camp.
Republicans insist that a mail-in vote would lead to massive vote fraud. They demand both in-person voting and voter ID. Democrats insist the Republicans argument is cynical, and really is about lowering Democratic turnout, while subjecting all of us to death by coronavirus
The Constitution does not give Americans the "right" to vote by mail. But the danger of a federalized mail-in vote isn't about one side having a higher turnout.
The danger is that elections that are not perceived by all sides to be fair open the door to chaos, threatening the legitimacy of the government.
All politics is tribal, and tribes seek dominance. Ask yourselves, could the nation endure four more years of that?
But then, the left has been railing against the Constitution and the legitimacy of government since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Democratic presidential candidates demanded an end to the Electoral College, even as they campaigned in low-population Midwestern states. These states, like Iowa, would cede all power to the coasts if the Electoral College was abolished.
Isolating the Midwest and South while granting hegemony to the high-population centers of the coasts would trigger the fall of the republic, perhaps cause civil war. But little of that was discussed as Democratic candidates repeatedly heaped scorn on the Electoral College, and the legitimacy of the election, because Trump was its beneficiary in 2016.
Trump, like other Republicans, has raised the prospect of vote fraud with a national mail-in vote. "You'd never have a Republican elected in this country again," the president said.
Much of the media are liberal and support the Democrats. They loathe Trump, and especially his voters. Liberal pundits push mail-in voting as a reasonable response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Democrat and former Vice President Joe Biden — referred to, oddly, as the "apparent" nominee of his party, with Bernie Sanders dropping out — has been pushing mail-in voting repeatedly in national media appearances.
Biden wants the presidential election on Nov. 3, and said he prefers in-person voting. The "Today" show teed it up for him, asking Biden whether the coronavirus would allow "safe" in-person presidential voting.
"We should be thinking now ahead, have all the experts, both political parties and academia laying out what it would take to have voting by mail. … It depends upon the state of play, but we cannot delay or postpone a constitutionally required election in November," Biden said.
The Republican argument about mail-in voting leading to fraud is predictable. The Democratic response is also predictable.
"With the insanity of Wisconsin, Democrats have the proof they need to make this a mandate for November," Neera Tanden, the president of the left-wing Center for American Progress, was quoted as saying by NBC. She said Democrats need to do whatever they can to ensure vote-by-mail becomes law everywhere as a "fallback" in case the virus limits people from voting in person.
The Wisconsin vote was indeed insane. Wisconsin Republicans saw advantage in holding the vote. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers waffled for weeks, first supporting an election, then trying to stop it at the last minute, and desperately seeking to shove in new election rules without the benefit of legislation. This made a complete shambles of the law, and then conservatives on Wisconsin Supreme Court shot it down. And the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a federal court extension of time to cast absentee ballots.
Democrats and their pundits pounced on the Republicans — and conservative justices — as monsters who'd risk the lives of voters in a bid for raw power
But they weren't all that bothered when Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker pushed a coronavirus primary election on March 17. He'd already closed bars, restaurants and shut down St. Patrick's Day parades. As the bar owners held last-chance farewell parties before the shutdown, Pritzker condemned them. He knew the virus was deadly. He said bar owners would be responsible for any coronavirus deaths.
And then, the next day, he held his election anyway.
What is the difference, really, between Republicans and Democrats?
It's not virtue. Only children and Twitter trolls seek virtue in politicians. Politicians are human, and humans use any advantage, including fear of a virus, or fear of terrorism, to leverage power.
Our founders understood the truths about tribal factions and human nature. They crafted the Constitution with this in mind. But now, it seems, we conveniently forget.
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John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also hosts a radio show on WLS-AM.