Commentary

Just 10 days after the New York Times published its expose’ by a team of four reporters about “an emerging coalition that views Donald J. trump’s agenda as a threat to democracy,” the Washington Post published a piece in it’s The Deciders series by three reporters entitled, “Trump trusted more than Biden on democracy among key swing-state voters.”  Huh.

Regular readers of this blog may recall my criticism of the Biden-Harris campaign casting the battle for the presidency as a battle for the country’s survival, warning that former President Trump represents an existential threat to American democracy.  In every speech and campaign ad.

In the Times piece, The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started, the reporters – all known sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome – write about the groundwork to push back if Trump wins in November, taking preemptive actions.

It’s reminiscent of the anti-Trump resistance groups formed in Washington’s Deep State in 2015 that I wrote about last month. The Times reporters have apparently forgotten about that, claiming this new coalition effort is “without precedent.”

With Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations and abortion pill access high on their list of concerns, the Times says there’s “a sprawling network of Democrat officials, progressive activists, watchdog groups and ex-Republicans taking extraordinary steps to prepare for a potential second Trump presidency, drawn together by the fear that Mr. Trump’s return to power would pose a grave threat not just to their agenda but to American democracy itself.”

Fifty national and local immigration rights organizations, apparently with no concern over the millions of illegals spread across the country, met in Phoenix recently for a three-day retreat under the umbrella group Immigrant Movement Visioning Process.

Other groups are concerned about Trump curtailing access to abortion.  Leftist Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee told the Times he had secured a large enough supply of mifepristone pills to preserve access for women in this state through a second Trump administration.

There’s also concern over Trump’s desire to fire civil servants for political reasons and the possibility that he would use troops to suppress protests that got violent, like those of Portland and Minneapolis in 2020.

A spokesman for the Center for American Progress, a Soros-funded organization, commented that “we have to democracy-proof our institutions and the values that we share.”

“It’s not surprising that Biden and his cronies are working overtime to stymie the will of the American people after they vote to elect President Trump and his America First agenda,” said Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman.  “Their devious actions are themselves a direct threat to democracy.”

I found it interesting that the reporters found many of those interviewed to be wary of discussing contingency plans publicly for fear of signaling a lack of confidence in President Biden’s campaign.

Then there’s the Washington Post finding

Their piece indicates that Biden’s message of Trump’s threat to democracy “may not be resonating with the voters Biden needs in order to win another term in the White House.”

The Post writers found that more voters in the six swing states trust Trump to handle those threats than Biden, believing that the guardrails in place to protect democracy would hold even if a dictator tried to take over the country.

“Many Americans don’t recognize Biden’s custodianship of our democracy, which is a bad sign for his campaign,” – Justin Gest, professor of policy and government at George Mason University

For many voters, democracy is an abstract idea, less tangible than issues like the economy, education or immigration. Still, most voters, regardless of party, report that the issue matters to them.

In an associated question asking if Trump or Biden would try to rule as a dictator, nearly half of the voters in the 3,300 surveyed by the Post, nearly half of voters in the key states believe that to be true of Trump, probably because of his joking statement that he would be dictator for a day to take care of key issues like immigration and drilling.  Fewer than one in five say the same about Biden.

Reflecting back to a January 2021 article by Joe Concha in the Washington Examiner, “By his own definition, Biden is already governing like a dictator,” Biden’s signing of 37 executive orders in the first week can be referred to as dictatorial.  That’s 33 more than Trump in his term. 

A 61-year-old Pennsylvania man told the Post that “when Democrats say Trump is a threat to democracy it’s because they’re scared to death that of their corruption being exposed.”

When one looks back at a number of Biden’s actions, he could be considered a dictator if you believe as two thirds of key state voters in the post survey do, that “a strong leader who makes decisions without interference from Congress or the courts, it’s a dictatorship and would be bad.”

I thought a 25-year-old manufacturing process engineer in Grand Blanc, Michigan – a Trump supporter – summed it all up pretty well when he told the Post that “democracy will stand no matter who is president. I find it hard to believe that democracy is going to go away.  I don’t think about it very much.”

“That’s a problem for Biden,” said Professor Gest, who pointed out that Biden’s democracy threat isn’t resonating with voters.

May God continue to bless the United States of America.