Elite Psychopathology Driving Democrats’ “Soft Coup” Attempt
To stop Donald Trump from becoming president, journalists, activists, and government officials are undermining democracy in the name of saving it
After Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses yesterday, both CNN and MSNBC refused to carry his speech, instead airing speeches by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said that the danger of Trump’s triumph came not just from him but also from his supporters. “If we’re worried about our democracy falling to an authoritarian and potentially fascist form of government, the leader who is trying to do that is part of that equation,” she said, “but people wanting that is a much bigger part of that equation.”
If reelected in 2024, Donald Trump is likely to politicize the US military, NBC News reported on Sunday. During his last term, according to NBC, some of Trump’s appointees prevented him from abusing his presidential powers, but in 2024 Trump will surround himself with only loyalists. “Now, bracing for Trump’s potential return,” wrote NBC reporters, “a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs.”
But this one-sided portrayal of Trump as a potential dictator ignores the abuses of power perpetrated by Democrats and anti-Trump government bureaucrats over the last seven years. In partnership with civil society and the mainstream media, federal government agencies created a vast censorship network and appear to have used offensive counterterrorism and influence tactics against the American people after 2016.
And in 2020, Democrats pursued strategies that closely resembled color revolution techniques used abroad. These activities, in addition to a pattern of entrapment and demonization of Trump supporters as violent domestic extremists, were anti-democratic and authoritarian.
Some of the media’s criticism of Trump is legitimate.