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For the past decade, the left has consistently framed policy disputes with conservatives on every topic as a major face-off between democracy and Hitler’s spawn. So who’s really fanning the flames of political division and violence?
Donald Trump nearly got his head blown off in an assassination attempt, and now progressives are claiming that everyone needs to lower the political heat.
Yet unless the left acknowledges their role in spreading outrageous slanders against their main opponent and broadcasting it across the airwaves, these calls for restraint will remain hollow and purely expedient.
For instance, when Joe Biden spoke to the nation from the Oval Office, he denounced the shooting that left one father dead and the former President injured, imploring Americans to “cool it down.”
That’s great advice.
The question is, will Biden follow his own counsel?
Less than three weeks ago, during a televised debate, the president told 51 million viewers that Donald Trump has an affinity for neo-Nazis. He repeated the much-debunked claim that when Trump talked about “very fine people on both sides” in 2017, he was alluding to avowed racists. In reality, Trump was talking about an ongoing controversy over what to do with a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Even the left-wing “fact-check” site Snopes admitted that Trump wasn’t praising white supremacists. He was recognizing that average Americans can have a good-faith opinion on either side of a matter involving a memorial to General Robert E. Lee — hence, his “very fine people on both sides” remark.
With an army of researchers at his disposal, Biden knew this was an ugly smear. But he echoed it anyway because his party has been intent on creating an image in the minds of voters that Trump is Hitler reborn.
It’s been his campaign strategy all along. On the very day bullets started zipping past Trump’s head, Biden tagged him as a “dictator.”
Will Biden lead by example, apologize for these blatant lies, and vow never to utter them again?
If he did, he’d have to get in an exceptionally long line.
The New Republic’s June cover — as in last month — featured Donald Trump with a Hitler mustache under the title, “American Fascism: What It Would Look Like.”
In a similar vein, the Washington Post ran an op-ed last year titled, “Yes, It’s Okay to Compare Trump to Hitler. Don’t Let Me Stop You.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow have raised the possibility that Trump, if re-elected, would haul them off to jail or perhaps to “massive camps” as retribution.
Then there’s Claire McCaskill, a former United States senator, who decided that Trump is “more dangerous” than both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini because, unlike those evil, murdering monsters, Trump is “selfish.”
And those are just a few illustrations. This entire article could list case after case after case of prominent media personalities and left-wingers portraying Trump as a tyrant who poses an “existential threat to democracy.”
But here’s the thing: It’s tough to pivot away from these delusional rants, even after a failed assassination plot.
To wit: “If Trump is Hitler, who will build concentration camps for his critics and never permit another US election — all of which they claim,” observed liberal journalist Glenn Greenwald, “why would they lament this attack and pray for his recovery?”
Or as the Washington Examiner sincerely asked, “Do Democrats believe Trump is Hitler or don’t they?”
Now would be a good time to give us an answer, preferably before the next plot targets the 45th president, a congressman like Steve Scalise — nearly shot dead in 2017 by a Bernie Bro — or a Supreme Court Justice like Brett Kavanaugh, who had a California man show up at his house with zip ties, a Glock, and homicidal intent because he was angry about the leaked Dobbs ruling.
So yes, the overheated rhetoric needs to cool down, as Biden says. But unless the president and the media take the lead and stop framing policy disputes with conservatives on every topic as a major face-off between democracy and Hitler’s spawn, then the political temperature will keep rising and polarization will worsen.
The truth is that “both sides” are not responsible for this historic moment. Such vague generalities muddy the issue, failing to pinpoint the left’s unbridled hatred for Trump and his allies. This obscures the incendiary language they’ve ramped up since Trump announced his candidacy in 2015.
Progressives could offer a public apology for likening Trump to a genocidal madman and branding his supporters as irredeemable deplorables who need “formal deprogramming,” as Hillary Clinton did, and instead start representing the concerns of conservative groups honestly.
I wouldn’t bet on it, though.
That would require humility and self-reflection, qualities that people obsessed with power usually do not possess.
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