America’s Real Authoritarians
By: I&I Editorial Board
Thanks to Real Clear Politics for carrying this editorial. It’s so right on!
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S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A particular line from our Thursday editorial reminded us of something we’ve been seeing for some time now: claims by the media that Republicans in general and Donald Trump in specific are authoritarians. It’s a truly malignant form of psychological projection.
The comment referenced in our observation that dissent is no longer the highest form of patriotism that struck us is from Northeastern University journalism professor and public radio panelist Dan Kennedy. He said, with zero supporting evidence, that the Republican Party “has embraced authoritarianism and voter suppression.”
The only “proof” he offers is a report from a European think tank that says in 2020 “the United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale.”
Well, let’s see what happened in the U.S. in 2020. A pandemic arrived and policymakers all across the country quickly began violating rights by shutting down businesses; outlawing the people’s right to freely assemble (unless they were rioting for the right reasons, that is reasons approved by Democrats and the media); trapping people in their homes; arresting those who dared to move about without government permission; requiring masks in public and private settings; forcing kids to muzzle themselves for entire school days; and in some cases demanding proof of immunization to carry on as normal.
In the beginning officials from both parties were guilty of the excesses. But in 2021, it’s the Republican red states that have returned lost liberties while Democrat blue states, and Democrats in Washington, continue to violate freedom with the cheerleading of the press.
But the report doesn’t say the panicked and irrational pandemic response was the fuel driving the U.S. toward authoritarianism. It blames Trump’s questioning of “the legitimacy of the 2020 election results,” as well as “baseless allegations of electoral fraud and related disinformation,” which “undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process.”
Naturally there was not a word about the Democratic and media effort, lasting now more than half a decade, to first remove Trump from office, then to cast him out of the public square based on a nasty political set-up engineered by Hillary Clinton, which some dare call a subversion of our system, because that’s what it was.
The report does refer, however, to the “Trump Administration’s early ban on travel from China to the United States,” but of course there’s no mention of the current Democrat in the White House placing restrictions on air travel from South Africa out of fear of the Omicron variant.
As one would expect, the report also complains about new voting laws passed in states. They are by no means suppressive, but implying that they are snugly fits the left’s narrative.
So Kennedy’s appeal to authority to make his case about GOP authoritarianism is a flop. There’s nothing there. But a lack of evidence hasn’t slowed the effort to tar the GOP. Others who are making the same argument as Kennedy include:
- One-time conservative (allegedly) Jennifer Rubin. She used her pulpit in the Washington Post to try to convince America that many in the GOP base “prefer authoritarianism to democracy.”
- Benjamin Parker of The Bulwark, which is the rotten fruit of The Weekly Standard gone bad, who’s said “The Republican party is an authoritarian party, not just in its unabashed hostility to democracy and the rule of law, but also in its internal organization.”
- Vox, which says “The Republican Party has embraced an agenda that rigs the rules in their favor” – we’ll ignore the juicebox kids’ grammatical error for now – under a headline that reads “ Call it authoritarianism. ”
- Bill Schneider, an emeritus professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, who rambled on in The Hill about how there’s more “popular support for Trump’s brand of authoritarianism” “than you think.”
- CNN, which was happy to report that “U.S. Republicans are starting to look a lot like authoritarian parties in Hungary and Turkey.”
- A University of Massachusetts Amherst visiting research associate who is quite sure that Trump is an authoritarian and so are millions of Americans .
It’s almost as if journalists and academics are working together from a set of talking points to coordinate their attacks on conservatives and Republicans and further their leftist agenda.
How have we arrived at a place in our history in which the party that wants to limit government, embrace free markets, deregulate, and let people keep more of their hard-earned money is authoritarian, and the party that wants to force conformity, censor speech, eliminate all political challenges by establishing a single-party state that it controls, and make us all wards of the state is not?
The answer is clear: The Big Lie has enabled the left’s ability to project its worst traits on the right.
Which is all the more interesting because the left side of the political aisle, in another ugly example of its projection, actually believes it is anti-fascist, and accuses anyone who even mildly questions the results of the 2020 presidential election as a super-spreader of the Big Lie. No group is more in need of self-examination, and maybe some professional help, than America’s angry left.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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Do you understand the contradiction of the bourgeoisie calling for socialism? If socialism is defined per Marx (the context would suggest so) then what is the contradiction?
Do you understand the contradiction of the proletariat favoring capitalism? Note that the proletariat are the workers of a nation who do not own the means of production and thus cannot leverage same; their compensation is a function of their personal time and effort.
The 'conclusion' that political progressives are not Marxist is correct. Do you understand why?
I really don’t care. Socialism is a failure every way it’s tried. Progressives may not be marxist but they do favor coerced redistribution and are the definition of authoritarian. There is no contradiction in the middle and working classes calling for capitalism. There is no denying that the bi coastal secular left elites are calling for redistribution from the middle and working classes to their favored oligarchs.
I am aware that you do not care and that is why you do not know what you are talking about.
Then you do not comprehend authoritarian rule either.
You limit this to "bi-coastal secular left elites" thus you truly do not see the big picture. The big picture is the dark side of capitalism ... when capitalist entities grow so large and powerful that they effectively control the economy. This is what you perceive with your "bi-coastal secular left elites" fright. It is systemic.
If you envision capitalism as friendly businesses providing honest goods and services for a fair price then you see only one side of capitalism. It is a nice, pretty image but a large part of it is a fantasy.
I know as much about what I’m talking about as you do about what you talk about.
I do actually. No one who thought that Trump was in any way even slightly authoritarian comprehends the true meaning of the word.
That they are the focus point of all that is evil and wrong about our country is the big picture.
(Continued) I see that just fine. Crony Obama/BiDen capitalism like Silicon Valley big tech social media and the wall st banksters/hedge fund managers. Trump and his supporters saw and recognized this internal enemy of the working and middle class. And they are bi coastal.
(Continued some more)
It is reality in much of the country. These are the small and independent businesses blue city and state governments used the pandemic to shut down while keeping their cronies open.
Let's see, they feel the rightful rage of the voters is the end of democracy.
But
"They are not worried about 2 million foreign nationals crashing the border in a single year, without vaccinations during a pandemic. Yet it seems insurrectionary for a government simply to nullify its own immigration laws.
They are not worried that some 800,000 foreign nationals, some residing illegally, will now vote in New York City elections.
They are not worried that there are formal efforts to dismantle the U.S. Constitution by junking the 233-year-old Electoral College or the preeminence of the states in establishing ballot laws in national elections.
They are not worried that we are witnessing an unprecedented left-wing effort to scrap the 180-year-old filibuster, the 150-year-old nine-person Supreme Court, and the 60-year tradition of 50 states, for naked political advantage.
They are not worried that the Senate this year put on trial an impeached ex-president and private citizen, without the chief justice in attendance, without a special prosecutor or witnesses, and without a formal commission report of presidential high crimes and misdemeanors.
They are not worried that the FBI, Justice Department, CIA, Hillary Clinton, and members of the Obama Administration systematically sought to use U.S. government agencies to sabotage a presidential campaign, transition, and presidency, via the use of a foreign national and ex-spy Christopher Steele and his coterie of discredited Russian sources.
They are not worried that the Pentagon suddenly has lost the majority support of the American people. Top current and retired officers have flagrantly violated the chain-of-command, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and without data or evidence have announced a hunt in the ranks for anyone suspected of “white rage” or “white supremacy.”
They are not worried that in 2020, a record 64 percent of the electorate did not cast their ballots on Election Day.
Nor are they worried that the usual error rate in most states of non-Election Day ballots plunged—even as an unprecedented 101 million ballots were cast by mail or early voting.
And they are certainly not worried that partisan billionaires of Silicon Valley poured well over $400 million into selected precincts in swing states to “help” public agencies conduct the election. "
That’s the way of the secular left bicoastal urban elitist snobs who would rule over us if only we’d consent to their tyranny.
It is clearly obvious that ( the American people ) are ready for an Orban style government and will relish in the freedoms afforded by forced religion, forced child birth and regular exercises in the practice of approved patriotism. Americans are weary of democratic freedoms which promise much but are to easily thwarted by a well financed and a very loud minority. The real tyranny is the ability of the common person to stand in the way of wealth and the class that wealth occupies. After all, how can the poor appreciate the sacrifice by the rich who have to endure the very existence of the poor?
Gee MAGAS. #3 to much up your alley?
Exactly! 🥳👏👍🇺🇸
It is what you want isn't it? You afraid to say it?
What is what I want?
What am I supposed to be too afraid to say?
We will settle for another Teump term followed by two terms of De Santis.
As to European democracies, Hungary and Poland are two of the better run ones now. Great new NATO members.
And there you've said. Half arsed, but said it. Still pulling those punches though.
Hungary and Poland are great new EU and NATO nations that carry their weight in defense spending. They are also great allies in facing off against Russia 🇷🇺 and China 🇨🇳
Uh no and no and yet another no. Everything about your statement is false. Why did you make it?
They are not members of the EU? They aren’t part of NATO? They didn’t meet their assigned defense amounts? They aren’t allies of America? They won’t help us in a showdown with communist and fascist enemy nations? What exactly are you saying that I said that isn’t true?
So what was it about what I said specifically that was false?
Authoritarian Democrats at work
Or at least they presume that they do…