Life is rich, especially when you can watch the progressive media have a meltdown over the success of Donald Trump — even if it’s a faux meltdown.
Colbert King writing in The Washington Post quotes, approvingly, Amanda Taub writing on Vox, who says Donald Trump is an authoritarian. E. J. Dionne also plays the authoritarian card in a February column. The gist of the Vox piece is reminiscent of the 1964 Fact magazine article that proclaimed: “1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater Is Psychologically Unfit to be President!”
What are the authoritarian supporters of Trump accused of wanting? The Taub piece says policies such as “prioritizing military force over diplomacy against countries that threaten the United States; amending the Constitution to bar citizenship for children of illegal immigrants; imposing extra airport checks on passengers who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent; and requiring all citizens to carry a national ID card to show a police officer on request.”
Not everyone will agree on the desirability of those four proposals, but it’s not clear how approving of them is evidence of authoritarianism. Reasonable people may differ on the question of birthright citizenship, but the better argument is that the Fourteenth Amendment does not confer U.S. citizenship on the children of illegal aliens. For a short debate on the issue, see here.
But Progressivism Is Inherently Authoritarian
Even if all the policies cited were evidence of authoritarianism, they are hardly more authoritarian than the 82,000-page Federal Register, which imposes a burden on the American people of $1.8 trillion a year, according to Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Or President Obama’s mandate that everyone must buy health insurance. Or that Roman Catholic nuns must have health insurance that covers contraceptives and abortifacients. Or that disoriented boys who see themselves as girls must be allowed to shower with girls. And what about former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s war on sodas and other sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces?
Progressivism — the proper name for the governing philosophy of those people who used to be called “liberals” — is inherently authoritarian, and its primary products are lamentation, and mourning, and woe.
The Washington Post complains that Trump “applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the press.” But has The Washington Post objected to the proposal of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) to have the U.S. Department of Justice use RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) against people who deny climate change — the First Commandment of progressivism? Or Hillary Clinton’s proposal to amend the First Amendment in order to curtail individual contributions to political campaigns?
Trump Represents What the Left Thinks of the Right
You have to marvel at Timothy Egan’s comment that Trump “wants to apply a religious test for entry into a country whose founders were against any such thing.” Appealing to the American Founders is like turning a light on and off. What would Egan say about the Founders’ thinking on, say, the tangled web of sexual pathologies progressives celebrate, or abortion, which they refer to as reproductive rights?
And you have to love this from The Washington Post editorial team. Beating up on Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Pribus, who had said “Winning is the antidote to a lot of things” the Post wrote: “So it falls to other leaders to decide if their party will stand for anything other than winning. A political party, after all, isn’t meant to be merely a collection of consultants, lobbyists and functionaries angling for jobs. It is supposed to have principles….”
This from the people who are salivating to have Hillary Clinton elected—Hillary Clinton, the most corrupt person on the planet — with the possible exception of Equatorial Guinea President Teodorin Obiang Nguema Mbasogoea, Africa’s longest-serving ruler. He has ruled the tiny, oil-rich West African country since he overthrew his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, in a bloody coup d’état in 1979, the year Carolyn Moffet, a legal secretary in Little Rock, Arkansas, said she was sexually abused by Bill Clinton.
Here’s what Republicans and conservatives need to understand: the left-wing media’s attack on Trump is not just an attack on Trump. It’s really an attack on anyone who doesn’t hew the progressive line. A March editorial in The New York Times gave the game away: “Last week Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, elected to the Senate partly on their appeal to extremists, seemed….” Catherine Rampell wrote in The Washington Post, “Is Donald Trump really so much crazier or more extreme than the other Republicans presidential candidates?”
Dionne wrote, the Republican Party “has subtly and not so subtly played on racial resentment —…Ronald Reagan’s famous ‘welfare queen’ — for decades.” A man who’ll accuse President Reagan of racism will — does it need to be said out loud? — accuse whoever the Republican nominee is of racism, and probably also of wanting to take us back to the darkest days of history — and you know what that means.
These comments are not an endorsement of Trump. Why would a conservative endorse Trump when the rightwardmost viable candidate since Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan is a major contender, and now doing better than ever? This is simply a reminder to conservatives, and Republicans, that whatever the progressive media are saying about Trump today they will be saying tomorrow about the Republican nominee, whoever he is. And as Mary McCarthy said of Lillian Hellman, everything they say is a lie, including the words “and” and “the.”
They’re all-in for Hillary — the second most-corrupt person on the planet, just after Equatorial Guinea President Teodorin Obiang Nguema Mbasogoea.
Life will be a lot less rich, if Hillary Clinton is elected president, for those who are already suffering under the policies of progressivism and authoritarianism, the socialist twins. That will be true even if Hillary does not engage in her hallmark corrupt practices, and even if she is only the 242nd most corrupt person on the planet.
