I & I Editorial BoardIn a tweet sent out over the weekend, Rob “Meathead” Reiner declared that “For our Democracy to survive, two things have to happen. Donald Trump needs to be Convicted for Jan. 6th and there can be no Third Party Candidate.”
Reiner’s comment was so blatantly anti-democratic that it elicited an avalanche of criticism, some of it from leftists who didn’t particularly like the idea of barring third-party candidates. As one person on X (formerly known as Twitter) responded: “Better make sure there’s no second party candidate either, just to be safe. For Democracy.”
Another way of putting what Reiner said: We need to kill democracy in order to save it.
So, who cares what Reiner thinks? Well, alarming as his view might be, it’s fast becoming the position of a huge swath of Democrats. Namely, that the biggest threat to “democracy” is that people won’t vote the way the left wants them to, and that anything, including violence, is acceptable to avoid that fate.
We noted in this space recently how the left has started labeling anything it don’t like as a threat to “democracy.”
Election laws designed to mitigate fraud are threats to democracy. ‘Misinformation’ – defined as anything the left doesn’t like to hear – is a threat to democracy. Recent Supreme Court rulings are a threat to democracy. The prevalence of guns is a threat to democracy. Climate change is a threat to democracy. The ‘war on woke’ is … you guessed it … a threat to democracy.
In just the past few weeks, we’ve seen headlines such as:
- “The GOP’s impeachment push is an attack on democracy”
- “Elon Musk Is a Threat to Democracy”
- “Georgia criminalizing post-George Floyd protests is a new blow to democracy”
- “Trump’s Threat to Democracy Is Now Systemic”
- “Threats to democracy: Climate misinformation and gendered disinformation”
- “The Supreme Court’s ‘Major Questions Doctrine’ Is a Threat to Democracy”
- “Housing Crisis a Threat to Democracy”
- “Doug Jones: Third party presidential bids ‘threat to democracy’”
- “Vivek Ramaswamy Is a Threat to Democracy”
These endless sky-is-falling alarms have nothing to do with protecting democracy. They have everything to do with the left’s desire to squelch debate. By claiming that one side is a threat to democracy, there’s no need to engage in discussion.
The flip side is that violence becomes an acceptable alternative. If one side is threatening democracy, a violent response might seem justified.
And that’s exactly what a recent poll showed is happening.
The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats asked 3,543 adults about the use of violence to achieve various political ends. (We commented on this poll a while back.)
One of the questions asked if “The use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” The survey found that 3.9% of Republicans “strongly agree” with that statement, with another 5.6% saying they “agree.”
The press hyper-focused on that finding. But given that the same survey found that 42% of Republicans believe Joe Biden stole the 2020 election, that 9.5% doesn’t seem all that shocking..
Let’s look at another question from the survey: Is “The use of force . . . justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president”?
Turns out that 16.1% of Democrats agreed with that statement, with almost one in 10 saying they “strongly agree.”
Think about the difference between those two questions and the implication of those responses. On one hand, 9.5% of Republicans say force is justified to protect democracy by installing the duly elected president.
On the other hand, 16.1% of Democrats say force is justified to prevent a duly elected president from taking office.
Now ask yourself, which side is a threat to democracy? Those who want elections to be decided by voters according to the laws set forth in the Constitution, or those who would be willing to use violence to stop a duly elected president from taking office?
We would love to hear Meathead’s answer. But we have a good idea what it would be.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Once a “meathead”, always a “meathead”.
Rob Reiner poses as a democrat but spent his life subversively instituting totalitarian commmunistic practices and doctrines.After all his bretheren were the founders of communism in Europe and Russia who came to America and have since their arrival actively undermined the freedoms that Christianity and the Reformation bestowed upon the western world.
Obama used to talk about things that weren’t fair, usually in a class warfare context. What is really not fair is idiots like reiner being lucky enough to become rediculously wealthy from a career in hollywood. Now if he were willing to spend ALL his money to pay for all the marxist goodies that the communist democrats promise and which “useful idiots” seem to feel they are due, fine. But I haven’t seen a single wealthy elite that shills for a marxist world willing to do that. Not soros, schwab, gates, etc………
I see the leftists equate “Democracy” with “Democrat(ic) Party.”
Anything they see as a threat to the dominance of their party over the nation is a threat to democracy. Yet every idea they profess is the use of force to protect those in power.
Nowhere in our nation’s founding documents is the word “democracy” used. Yet these modern Democrats use it as a cudgel to convince people to be on their side of the issue. This was magnified by the Leni Riefenstahl-type speech delivered by Biden at Independence Hall in 2022. It’s all about preservation of their vision for the US.
Will someone tell Meathead that we are a Representive Republic, not a “Democracy.”
Trump is a threat to Meathead’s democracy because Meathead’s “democracy” is totalitarianism.
One other thing is certain regarding Rob Reiner’s comments on democracy: His character in “All in the Family”, who was called Meathead by Archie, was obviously type casting.
Why must people like him speak? What are his bona fides? He makes movies. Wow. He is not educated a d he has existed in a liberal bubble since the 1970s. He thinks he is relevant when I’m fact he is a sad little embarassemrbt east of west hollywood.
Just be quiet and try to hit it again with another when Harry met Sally and prive your value to the people who made you wealthy…us, the deplorables.
If they prevent Trump and Kennedy from legitimately seeking the Presidency, both should team up on a Trump/Kennedy ticket and run 3rd Party. Also, it amazes me what a bunch of hypocrites The Meathead and his ilk are. They fought imaginary totalitarianism during the 60’s and instill real totalitarianism in the 2020’s. They’re now against the freedom of speech and pro-censorship, both bedrocks of their initial assault on the constitution, they trust everything the government (which they used to despise) tells them and does, and most of all, they’re pro-war. I guess all those things are okay a long as they’re for socialist/communist causes. Rob Reiner is much more closely aligned with Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot than he is Washington and Jefferson.