I & I Editorial BoardThe Democrats and their media accomplices keep telling us the Republicans are the fascists and autocrats hungry for power. But just the opposite is true. The Democrats themselves made it clear during the pandemic that they are the party of authoritarianism.
In the spring of 2020, this country went into a lockdown. As Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute has noted, government officials canceled public worship services, segregated the large cities, abolished in-person education, foisted masks on all the kids, destroyed millions of businesses, and censored speech “so that we could barely discover facts.” They shut down concerts, imposed limits on house parties, scrapped weddings and funerals, locked the elderly into their homes and blocked visitation, ended dentistry, and imposed travel restrictions across state borders, says Tucker.
Some officials, however, saw that the rules were oppressive and restored liberty in their states. None of them are Democrats.
The authoritarian streak that runs throughout the Democratic Party came roaring out, no longer hidden just below the surface. Here was their chance to feed their hunger for more raw power. And they dined sumptuously.
The actions of both elected and unelected Democrats were not “hard calls,” as an Atlantic contributor recently labeled them in an appalling plea to grant amnesty to the offenders. They were the coercive orders of monstrous minds that perversely enjoy telling others what they cannot do and what they must do, who take great satisfaction in demanding and receiving obedience to their diktats.
Pleading for amnesty is not a sincere appeal to forgive and forget. It’s an effort to disarm the defenders of liberty so that the tyrants can more easily in the future establish another set of restrictions, most likely to “flatten the curve” of a climate emergency that doesn’t exist.
It’s clear that Democrats knew exactly what they were doing. The excuse that “we just didn’t know enough” at the beginning of the novel coronavirus outbreak was the perfect cover for their tyrannical urges. Ned Ryun, a George W. Bush speechwriter, reminds us that “within weeks, well-credentialed science and health specialists were warning about the unreliable science behind masks, forced lockdowns in senior care facilities, and the potential long-term harm masking and isolation would cause to young people.” Of course “all of these objections were met with threats, professional derision, and cancellation by the people who are now calling for absolution.”
The most egregious example of a Democrat abusing his authority in the name of some manufactured good was found in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom, who still hasn’t surrendered his emergency powers, convinced himself and millions of others that he could issue essentially any order that came to mind. Not far behind was New York’s Andrew Cuomo, who, as one Democratic state lawmaker said, was “inclined toward tyranny.”
The list of Democratic governors who committed crimes against liberty include, but isn’t limited to, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan (who seems to have feigned a technical problem during an interview so she wouldn’t have to defend her indefensible handling of the pandemic), Oregon’s Kate Brown, and Jay Inslee of Washington. Their cruelty exposed them for who they are.
Two years ago, as the election was approaching, author James Bovard noticed that Joe Biden and the Democrats were “condemning (Donald) Trump for not seizing far more power to pretend to keep everyone safe from everything,” which set them up nicely for seizing power themselves. Never forget it was Biden who wanted a national mask mandate and issued “sweeping new federal vaccine requirements” after taking office, and was ready to punish those would not obey.
Of course the pandemic boundaries handed down by Democrats are only part of their game. They have also, as documented by PJMedia’s Lincoln Brown, weaponized the Justice Department to terrorize his political opponents, cast concerned parents as domestic terrorists, and even tried to find ways to criminalize election rhetoric.
“Who,” Brown continues, “but an autocrat would freeze energy production in his own country, raid the reserves, and flirt with nationalizing the oil industry?”
In the mind of a Democrat, the solution to every problem, both the real and the imagined, is to place greater limits on freedom, and to tighten their grip on the country.
One of the hallmarks of authoritarianism is its leaders’ efforts to “enhance sameness and minimize diversity of people, beliefs, and behaviors,” according to political scientist Karen Stenner. This is exactly what the Democrats have been focused on for years. Conform to their worldview or be shunned, canceled, driven from society.
Voters should be enraged, so alarmed at the Democrats’ systemic violations of liberty that starting today they spend the next three to four election cycles throwing the bums out. Our republic is at stake.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Bob Maistros
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Similar in concept to the Bolshevik game plan used in Russia’s 1917 communist revolution: Take control of government offices, make every whim your command, and cancel the opposition. In other words, the Democrats implemented Communism 2.0, updated for the realities of twenty-first century America.
This is true elsewhere as well. Look north to Canada, where Trudeau has showed his fascist streak (reminds me how he expressed admiration for how China gets things done). I wish someone would challenge these “emergency powers” on a constitutional basis – the US Constitution requires each state to have a legislature to make its laws, so when a governor invokes “emergency powers” to make decrees, it could only be justified for a short time until the legislature meets to ratify or change such decrees by legislative action.
Indeed. All the comments about ‘Democrat Projection’ aside, these are truly awful, awful people. And while I agree with Monica Crowley who said on a recent showing of the Laura Ingraham show that the Democrats should suffer an ‘extinction level event’ in the midterms, that happy thought misses the point and the practicality of such a desirous event.
First of all, teaching the Democrats a harsh lesson will take more than a single election cycle. Democrats are completely incapable of introspection and completely lack self-awareness, along with a sense of irony or humor. They need to spend at least a decade – ideally several – in the wilderness, starved of anything but token power. Their deep-seated local, regional, and national corruption and ‘machine’ operations need to be not just derailed for awhile, they need to be uprooted with salt and iodine poured into the hole. Humiliation, scorn and constant reminders of how awful they are need to be part of their daily diet. They must be made supine, humble, and frightened of even the slightest though of ‘Democratic Socialism’ or any other totalitarian impulse. Their love affair with Communism must be ended once and for all.
Meanwhile we can get to work on the Republicans. While the Democrats have Che, Mao, and Lenin as their guideposts, the GOP has a deep yellow streak of RINO obsequiousness and Establishment appeasement to purge. Their task is in many ways much easier. Democrats need to, in effect change their operating system, from revolutionary authoritarian Marxism to something more compatible with the culture of the United States. The GOP just needs to read the Constitution and be reminded that it serves as the OS for the whole country. Republicans just need to vote these people out and replace them with people who not only love our country and our system, but have the willingness to fight back against the creeping spread of soft-headed Swamp-think and Socialism.
Secondly, we need to understand that this may take some time, a minimum of 3 election cycles, the minimum required for each Senator to face reelection. This means we patriots need to stay focused on the end goal – the freeing of America from the grip of self-loathing, perverse, authoritarian, anti-American lunatics and spineless, self-obsessed Milquetoasts more concerned with attending the right cocktail parties and chasing the chimera of popularity.
We are Americans; a gritty, stubborn, moral, decent, hard-working people who aren’t afraid to speak our minds. It’s time we started acting – and voting – like it.