The 2022 midterm elections should have been “an extinction-level event” for Democrats. The party’s epic abuse of power had greatly damaged the nation, and party leaders were well aware of it.
But just as despair set in, along came an extraordinary gift in the form of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, a ruling that returned abortion law to the states. The landmark decision sparked fury among the Left, and the party capitalized on it to mitigate what would otherwise have been a crushing defeat in November.
But not wanting to risk it all on one issue, party leaders tapped into the ageless wisdom of the late communist Saul Alinsky. In his well-known book Rules for Radicals, he instructed followers to “accuse your opponent of what you are doing, to create confusion and to inculcate voters against evidence of your own guilt.”
Thus, a secondary issue was born: Republicans are undermining our democracy and pose the greatest existential threat to America’s future.
In June 2022, the message went out from on high, and within days, every liberal in the U.S. parroted it. Former President Bill Clinton told late-night host James Corden, “I actually think there’s a fair chance that we could completely lose our constitutional democracy for a couple of decades if we keep making — if we make bad decisions. … But I’ve never before been as worried about the structure of our democratic form of government.”
Days later, Hillary Clinton, perhaps the most corrupt woman in American politics, warned a Financial Times reporter, “We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy.”
And on it went. This talking point quickly became the centerpiece of the Democratic Party’s deliberate, coordinated propaganda campaign.
Just one week after the midterms, Democrats’ worst fear was realized. Former President Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. It took about a nanosecond for Democrats to personalize the talking point that had worked so well for them during the midterms.
Donald Trump poses the greatest threat to our democracy.
Without evidence, every Democrat, from President Joe Biden on down, began to repeat this line at every opportunity as if it were a proven fact. The result? Half of the electorate now believes that Trump truly is a threat to democracy.
Following the second assassination attempt on Trump on Sunday, the Democrats launched a new talking point: It’s Trump’s fault. His incendiary rhetoric is to blame for the attempts on his life.
This was demonstrated by an exchange during Tuesday’s White House press briefing between Fox News’ Peter Doocy and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Prior to Doocy’s question, another reporter had asked Jean-Pierre about how Trump “claimed without evidence that [President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’] rhetoric is causing him to be ‘shot at.’”
She replied, “President Biden has been clear-eyed about the threat that the former president represents to our democracy. He refused to accept the outcomes of free and fair elections [in 2020 and] 2,000 angry people went [to the US Capitol] to try to overturn a free and fair election.”
Her response prompted Doocy to ask, “How many more assassination attempts on Donald Trump until the President, the Vice President, and you pick a different word to describe Trump other than ‘threat?'”
As she typically does when she’s presented with the truth, Jean-Pierre went on offense. Following an audible sigh, she said, “Peter, if anything from this administration, I actually completely disagree with the premise of your question, the question that you’re asking. Uh, it is also incredibly dangerous in the way that you’re asking it.
“Uh, because American people are watching. And, to say that, to say that from an administration who has consistently condemned political violence, from an administration where the president called the former president and was thankful, grateful that he was okay, from an administration who has called out Jan. 6, called out the attack on Paul Pelosi, called out and said we need to lower the temperature after the Butler incident.
“And now for you to make that kind of comment in your question, because your question involved the comment and the statement, and, uh, that is also incredibly dangerous.”
It’s “incredibly dangerous” to call out the role of the Democrats’ relentless, fake, and deliberate propaganda campaign against Trump in the two assassination attempts? Is this really the best the White House can do?
Not sure that Americans will buy that?
For voters who aren’t sure, below are just some of the “receipts” of the Democrats’ handiwork.
It seems to me that the real threat to “democracy” is the Democratic Party, which long ago stopped trying to win elections on the issues.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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