A population that believes it's in peril can be more easily ruled by fear, and this is what media and their Democrat allies want.
The latest 'Big Lie' comes from a corporate media that desperately wants us to believe democracy is in 'peril'
Libby Emmons
There's a new "Big Lie" making the rounds of corporate media, and this one has nothing to do with the 2020 election. The liberal, corporate media wants us to believe that our democracy is in peril. It isn't; but a population that believes it's in peril can be more easily ruled by fear, and this is what media and their Democrat allies want.
The lie that democracy is in peril serves the purpose of creating a crisis, and once a crisis is acknowledged, special rules are implemented to deal with that crisis. This is the goal: to sidestep the rules that keep power in check, suspend standards of decency and decorum, and create an all-hands-on-deck and by-any-means-necessary mentality to save democracy, when it's the Democratic Party, and not American democracy, that is in peril.
In the past two days, almost in concert, The New York Times ran an op ed claiming that "The Republican party is succeeding because we are not a true democracy." The Washington Post asked, "Will American democracy survive the next few years?" The Hill weighed in with "Nearly a year after Jan. 6, US democracy remains perilously fragile," while Vox took a predictive tone to explain "Where the crisis in American democracy might be headed." At NPR, they used poll numbers to claim that "6 in 10 Americans say US democracy is in crisis as 'The Big Lie' takes root."
Trump, who took on the phrase "the Big Lie" after it was bestowed upon him by pundits who wanted to equate Trump to Hitler and did so by applying Nazi terminology to Trump's claims of election fraud—which played out in court, like they are supposed to in a functioning democracy—is the reason for the concern on the opinion pages of corporate media outlets.
Because Trump, and hatred of Trump, are literally their reason for everything. The events of January 6, where a bunch of Trump supporters left his rally at DC's ellipse and made their way into the Capitol Building, either by force or through doors held open to them by Capitol Police, are held up as an attack on democracy. This despite the fact that the vote the rioters sought to disrupt was merely delayed, and their concerns over election fraud were widely discredited. Is the emergency that Americans were angry? That they really wanted their guy to win? That they had concerns about how elections were carried out under media suppression, censorship, and obvious bias that, at the very least, was questionable?
The New York Times writes: "The Jan. 6 attack would not have happened in a genuine democracy. The attack was the most acute symptom — so far — of the political crisis that Donald Trump incited by refusing to admit defeat in the 2020 election. But the roots of the crisis run deep into the undemocratic features of our constitutional system." Then writer Jedediah Britton-Purdy pumped Joe Biden's progressive agenda.
The Washington Post also lays out their concerns, which revolve around Donald Trump. They write "Would a second Trump presidency be more restrained, more committed to the rule of law, less corrupt, less determined to twist our system into an autocracy? We all know the answer." Then they claim that Trump and his supporters are essentially "democracy's enemies."
The Hill admits that the claims that the election was altered at the ballot box to favor Biden were proven false, but say that "Republicans have made it harder for Democrats to vote," and slam election integrity laws that were passed in many states. Many of these laws still make voting more accessible than it is in Biden's home state of Delaware. Georgia, for example, expanded early voting. The Hill claims that the presidential election of 2024 is already imperiled. They say without evidence that Trump was "plotting a coup to stay in power," and claim that "If an election result can be invalidated, either by legal chicanery or force of arms, the United States will no longer be a democracy." But no election result was invalidated due to Trump's claims of election fraud. So what are they talking about?
Meanwhile, Ian Bremmer claimed on CBS that if Republicans have a strong showing in the 2022 midterm elections, the presidential race in "2024 is going to be seen as illegitimate and potentially a constitutional crisis."
Vox makes the wild assertion that "The Capitol riot was the violent culmination of President Donald Trump and his Republican allies' war on the legitimacy of American elections — but also a glimpse into the abyss that could have prompted the rest of the party to step away." They predict "Among the dire forecasts: hotly contested elections whose legitimacy is doubted by the losing side, massive street demonstrations, a paralyzed Congress, and even lethal violence among partisans."
NPR writes that "Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents agree that U.S. democracy is 'more at risk' now than it was a year ago. Among Republicans, that number climbs to 4 in 5." And at the heart of the disagreement is the Jan. 6 narrative, and Trump. Democrats largely believe that Jan. 6 was an "attempted coup or insurrection," where Republicans, NPR reports, sees it as a "riot that got out of control."
Democrats surged to power in 2020 because they had an enemy the entire party could mobilize against, and that enemy was, obviously, Donald Trump. Trump has been voted out of the White House, and Democrats used every tool at their disposal to do it, from campaigns to corporate media. Now Trump is in the background of the Republican party. He's there, but he's not as prominent as he once was. He's ready to come back when needed, and perhaps more than willing because he's a man who doesn't like to lose.
What the corporate media are now doing, along with their allies in Congress, especially those that back Pelosi's incessant, useless, partisan Jan. 6 committee, are trying to keep Trump front and center as the boogeyman, and to take down his influential supporters for the thought crime of supporting him.
But it's not Trump they're after, it's the everyday, hard working Americans who want decent lives for themselves and their kids, complete with educations that are not ideologically driven, opportunities for prosperity, and jobs that working families can depend on for financial security and even some personal fulfillment.
Corporate media and the Democrat party want Americans to be afraid: of COVID, of racism, of climate change, of economic difficulties, and of our own shadow. What current discourse and angry disagreement show us is that our democracy is thriving. We disagree, we take to the streets, we pen viscous opinion columns, but we hold together.
Trump is not Hitler. This is not the Civil War. Jan. 6 wasn't the worst attack on democracy the nation has ever seen. And Americans need not cower in the face of any crisis, because we know that it is when we are faced with difficulty that our values, and sticking to them, matters most of all.
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