Clearly at least one aspect of the liberal media’s battle strategy going into the 2024 is to scare a significant number of people into believing former President Donald Trump will assume dictatorial powers if he’s elected president again next November.
The irony is that President Joe Biden has acted in far more authoritarian ways than Trump ever did as president. In other words, the liberal media is projecting their guy’s own problems onto Trump.
Currently, the Justice Department is feverishly trying to put Trump, who is the far-and-away leading candidate for the Republican nomination and who happens to also be beating Biden in the general election polls, in prison for the rest of his life. And that’s just one example of the Biden administration’s dictatorial actions.
The liberal media’s goal in spinning the “Trump the would be dictator” yarn is readily apparent: convince enough voters in key swing states — like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia — to make the difference.
It’s the “make the other candidate the unacceptable choice” strategy employed when your own preferred candidate’s record, policy positions, personality, etc., are weak.
The Democrats tried it unsuccessfully in 2016 when Hillary Clinton ran against Trump. Remember you never heard about her policies or what a great leader she would be. Her campaign’s entire focus was, “You don’t want to elect this deplorable guy.”
However, Biden employed the technique successfully in 2020, arguing, “Trump’s a racist,” which the media of course mimicked. They threw in the “Elect Biden and all will return to normal” narrative, too.
That has proved false with the economy, foreign policy, and certainly at the southern border.
And unsurprisingly, Biden’s job approval number sits at about 38 percent.
So the media’s writing their “Trump would be a dictator” stories.
The alarm has gone off. Around this time in 2015, some in political/commentary class realized Trump could win GOP nomination. Freakout ensued, although many remained confident Trump could not win general. Now, warning machine has kicked into higher gear. pic.twitter.com/ZRtnloWAw2
— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 4, 2023
But let’s consider some of the actions, Biden has taken since he took office.
The Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley did a good job laying some of it out.
“[T]he portrayal of Mr. Trump as a would-be dictator is a textbook case of psychological projection, the process by which people avoid confronting their own unwanted thoughts, feelings or behaviors by subconsciously ascribing them to others. Psychologists refer to this as a defense mechanism,” she wrote in a Sunday piece for the Journal.
She then chronicled some of Biden’s authoritarian moves, including trying to cancel a half-a-trillion dollars in student loan debt by executive fiat.
When the Supreme Court shut him down, undeterred by the court ruling, Biden turned around and used other regulatory means to write off $127 billion.
Indeed, it is time to start worrying about the threat of authoritarianism in the White House. From @AllysiaFinley @WSJopinion: https://t.co/uVIwFoChzf pic.twitter.com/Mp8DOrp4kz
— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 11, 2023
The president also tried to impose a vaccine mandate on as many American workers as he possibly could, which again the courts largely shot down, except for federal workers or healthcare workers in facilities that receive federal funds.
The Biden administration has refused to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, leading to the worst border crisis in U.S. history.
Additionally, the administration put pressure on big tech companies to infringe on Americans’ First Amendment rights to discuss COVID policies or election integrity.
Do you think Trump will win in 2024?
Finally, in the aftermath of January 6, 2021, Capitol incursion, the Biden DOJ undertook the largest investigation in department history to arrest and charge more than 1,000 protesters, most of whom did not engage in violence.
The Trump DOJ took no such action against the “social justice” rioters who stormed the White House in the summer of 2020. Federal prosecutors should have been more aggressive, but that shows the DOJ’s bent even under a Republican president.
Let’s label the Biden DOJ round-up of the MAGA Republicans what it really is: intimidation and persecution of political opponents.
Biden himself sought to demonize them in his MAGA Republicans are the enemy speech in front of a red-lit Independence Hall in September 2022.
Biden shouts about so-called ‘extremists,’ ‘MAGA Republicans,’ and those who oppose his agenda in political speech at Independence Hall: https://t.co/c42R9df14c pic.twitter.com/kSTpkb6V3K
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) September 2, 2022
What about Trump’s first term suggests he would be a dictator in the second?
Is it Trump’s travel ban from countries with known anti-American terrorist elements an example of him being a dictator? The Supreme Court upheld it.
What about his directing of $2.5 billion from within the Defense Department budget which was appropriated for counter-drug measures, to be used on border wall construction? So Trump ordered the DOD, which he was the commander in chief over, to spend money on a border wall designed to better protect Americans and to slow the flow of illegal drugs into the country.
Looks pretty on point to me.
Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats sued Trump arguing the move violated the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, but the Supreme Court sided with the president.
Oh, but what about the January 6, 2021, “insurrection,” when the 45th president told his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”? Surely that was a dictatorial move.
No shots were fired by protesters that day, nor even guns taken into the Capitol, so not much of an insurrection. Some bad actors who should have been prosecuted were there for sure, but the vast majority were exercising their First Amendment rights.
Trump himself peacefully left office on January 20, and Biden became president.
The media and the Democrats are spinning a yarn about Trump the dictator.
Biden’s been the one who’s been the authoritarian; Trump was not.
