Less than a year after he took office, Joe Biden went to Philadelphia (“birthplace of American democracy”) and gave one of the most extraordinary speeches ever delivered by a president.
Essentially, Biden said that the 65 million people who voted for Donald Trump were the biggest threat to democracy since America’s founding. He called on Republicans to join with Democrats to “save democracy.”
Did he really mean that? Was he seriously suggesting that democracy was in mortal danger?
Democrats have been comparing Republicans to fascists since the end of World War II. Their base of supporters expects it, believes it, and demands it. So when Biden tried to raise the spectre of American fascism by appearing on a darkened, threatening stage, a blood red-lit background meant to heighten the menacing tone of Biden’s warnings, he was telling his audience that he was dead serious.
I daresay that if many Democrats actually thought that Donald Trump and MAGA were a threat to democracy, it begs the question of why they didn’t pour into the streets to protect America from this existential threat? And when Trump was elected, why didn’t millions of Democrats and leftists march to Washington and physically try to prevent Trump from taking office? If I believed some leftist was an existential threat to democracy, I’d sure as hell do something to try and stop him from trying to carry out his plans.
This is the surreal nature of the leftist critique of Trump. They talk as if they’re trying to convince themselves that Trump is a danger to the American republic because, in their hearts, they know it’s silly.
The recent New York Times op-ed by TV personality Larry David was typical “Trump is like Hitler” balderdash. However, the New York Times Deputy Opinion Editor, Patrick Healy, twisted himself in knots trying to justify why the op-ed appeared in the first place and why it wasn’t really a smear.
New York Times:
Times Opinion has a high bar for satire — our mission is geared toward idea-driven, fact-based arguments — and we have a really, really high bar for commenting on today’s world by invoking Hitler. As a general rule, we seek to avoid Nazi references unless that is the literal subject matter; callbacks to history can be offensive, imprecise or in terrible taste when you are leveraging genocidal dictators to make a point.
“Larry’s piece is not equating Trump with Hitler. It is about seeing people for who they really are and not losing sight of that,” Healy wrote.
Healy was laughing behind his hand when he wrote that. In fact, Larry’s piece was all about equating Trump with Hitler, and only someone trying to obscure that truth would make an idiotic statement like that.
Sometimes the best way to make an opinion argument isn’t in a traditional essay. Americans are inundated with news; it can sometimes take a satirical provocation to break through, even at the risk of causing offense.
Larry David, in a provocation of his own, is arguing that during a single dinner or a private meeting, anyone can be human, and it means nothing in the end about what that person is capable of.
Ergo, Trump is capable of being Hitler, so, in its very essence, Larry David was equating Trump with Hitler. This brings us back to the question: Do leftists really believe that?
Greg Gutffeld has the best reason for why they don’t believe it.
“I’m counting among his supporters, Jewish leaders and philanthropists, RFK Jr. and his wife Cheryl, who was in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Those are all apparently Nazi collaborators. It won’t matter because, to these lazy minds, calling somebody Hitler isn’t a big deal to them,” Gutfeld added. “They’ve reduced the smear to just people that they don’t like. It’s no longer a mass murderer. So who knew liberals would be the one who gives Hitler a makeover? That was just some guy you don’t get along with.”
Gutfeld makes the point that when leftists call Trump “Hitler” or viciously criticize what he’s doing, if Trump were really like the Nazi dictator, he’d have them arrested and sent to a concentration camp. No prominent Democrat or leftist has been arrested for anything they’ve said about Trump. No newspaper has been shuttered. No TV network has gone dark. No reporters have been sent to jail for what they wrote about Donald Trump.
This is the strangest “fascism” I’ve ever heard of.
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