PATRICK BUCHANAN IS OFF TODAY. THE FOLLOWING COLUMN IS BY DAVID HARSANYI

The other day, President Joe Biden accused voters of the opposition party of turning to “semi-fascism.” This is probably the first time in American history a president has openly attacked the opposing party’s constituents in this way.

Then again, Biden, who once alleged that the chaste Mitt Romney was harboring a desire to bring back chattel slavery, is prone to stupid hyperbole. And it’s true that most people who throw around the word “fascist” fail to do so with much precision. These days, the word “democracy,” like “fascism,” has lost all meaning. According to Democrats, asking someone to show ID before voting is an attack on “democracy,” but so is the Supreme Court’s handing back power to voters on the abortion issue. When you have no limiting principles of governance, anything that inhibits your exertion of power is seen as anti-“democracy.” If students have loans to be paid, “forgive” them. If you can’t pass a bill, the executive branch should do it by fiat. If the court stops it, pack it. Power is only to be limited when the opposition holds it.

A microcosm of this confused thinking can be found in the recent spate of hysterical media pieces about alleged Republican “book banning.” The use of “ban” by the media is more than a category error; it’s an effort to paint parents who use the very same exact democratic powers the left has relied on for decades as book burners. Public school curricula and book selection are political questions decided by school and library boards. Neither have a duty to carry every single volume on racial identitarianism or sexually explicit material simply demanded by some busybody at the American Library Association.

Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center notes that fascists “believed that multiparty democracy weakened the nation, and that competitive capitalism was wasteful and exploitative. Their alternative was a one-party state that guided the economy through regulation and sector-based accords between labor and business.”

Well, is it not the left that champions government intervention in the economy, with never-ending regulations, subsidies and mandates that effectively allow for controlling the means of production? Leftists — some incrementally, some less so — are the proponents of nationalizing the health care system, the energy sector and education. Again, if progressives have any limiting principles when it comes to intervention in our economic lives, I’d love to hear about them.

Are the most vociferous defenders of “democracy” not the ones who sound suspiciously like they want a one-party state? Modern Democrats have stopped debating policy or accepting the legitimacy of anyone who stands in their way. They will pass massive, generational reforms using parliamentary tricks, without any input from the minority. And they don’t merely champion their work as beneficial; they claim these bills are needed for the survival of “democracy” and “civilization” — nay, the survival of the planet. Anyone who opposes saving Mother Earth is surely an authoritarian. There is nothing to debate. The villainization of political opponents isn’t new, but we are breaking new ground.

Some may find it a bit fascist-y that the FBI feels free to instruct giant rent-seeking corporations to censor news to help elect their preferred candidate, as it did with Facebook. Or that the White House is in the business of “flagging” “problematic posts” and threatening corporations to “root out” “misleading” speech or be held accountable. One wouldn’t be off base seeing a “Disinformation Governance Board” that sifts through speech the administration dislikes or a Justice Department that treats those protesting authoritarian school boards as “domestic terrorists” as “semi-fascist.”

It is curious, as well, that the same people who control basically all major institutions in American life — academia, media, unions, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, trade associations, public schools, publishing, the entire D.C. bureaucracy, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, not to mention the presidency and Congress — claim to be victims of budding authoritarianism. The only major institution free of progressives’ grip right now is the Supreme Court. And the left is engaged in a systematic effort to delegitimize the Court for doing its job and limiting the state’s power.

None of this is to say that the right is innocent. I often find myself debating the populist right on issues ranging from the free markets and the role of the state. Abuses of the Constitution should be called out no matter who engages in them. However, progressivism’s crusade to destroy separation of powers, its attacks on religious freedom and free speech, its undermining of civil society, its binding of the economy to the state and its fostering of perpetual dependency and victimhood are far bigger long-term threats to the republic than Trumpism — and far closer to the definition of “semi-fascism” than the Republican agenda.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books — the most recent, “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.
COPYRIGHT 2022 CREATORS.COM

Subscribe
Notify of
15 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Leonard Collings
1 year ago

Some books have no business in Schools when they are age inappropriate.

Viet Vet
1 year ago

By censoring pro-America content, attacking and shutting down speakers at colleges and other venues, the left are in spades the modern book-burners. This plus their hate for Christianity and Jewry, they are indeed the fascists among us. However through their Stalinist and Marxist tactics, they are based in marxism/communism.

1 year ago

I have seen what the Democrats who control both housesof Congress and the Presidency have to offer. I’ve seen what it has done to inflation, border security, crime, and energy prices….and I DO NOT LIKE WHAT THEY HAVE DONE……In November 2022 my vote will be for CHANGES

Gary Fernett
1 year ago

We the people…never forget it’s we the people and not we the government that formed this country.

Viet Vet
1 year ago
Reply to  Gary Fernett

And the people who formed this government did everything they could to limit its power and size. One of their greatest fears was ‘centralized government’. The major power was to be vested in the states or the people, a system of ‘federalism’, or states rights. The greatest shame out of this whole disgusting ordeal was the permanent stain given Independence Hall. Brandon is damn lucky the Founding Generation can’t get hold of his sorry ass!!!

Viet Vet
1 year ago
Reply to  Gary Fernett

The people who founded this country were extremely wary of centralized government and they strove mightily that summer of 1787 to form a government while extremely limiting the federal government. This they had learned through empirical history. The most egregious sin of this whole disgusting Brandon episode is the stain given Independence Hall. Old pervert Brandon better be damn glad the Founding Generation can’t get hold of his sorry behind..

1 year ago

IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE. IM SURE BIDEN WOULD LOVE A ””KRISTALL NACHT… THIS GUY IS JUST LIKE STALIN AND HITLER. TOTALLY KARL MARX, EVERYTHING HE STANDS FOR , WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN AMERICA.
ALL THESE WINDMILLS KILLING ALL THE BIRDS.COSTING TO MUCH MONEY ,PLUS ARE USELESS JUST LIKE THE DEMOCRATS. WHERE OH WHERE IS OUR RIGHTFUL PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP. OUR FATHER THAT WE NEED MORE THEN EVER.HOW MANY AMERICANS ARE STILL FOR BIDEN ”’HITLER?? STILL ARE NOT ASHAMED. NEVER THOUGHT WE WOULD SEE THIS IN OUR COUNTRY. BUT THEN THERE ARE ALWAYS TRAITORS , TIME TO HANG THEM ALL. WE LOVE A CLEAN NATION, NO HOMELESS NO DRUGS, NO OPEN BORDERS, NO GENDER REASSIGNMENT, NO PEDOS,, NO WOKE, NO CRT, NO RACIST BS. A GREAT MILITARY #1. NO KARL MARX CRAP. ONLY DECENT GOD FEARING AMERICANS NEED TO SIGN UP.

Viet Vet
1 year ago

One book that should be in every school library is ‘Liberal Fascism’, by Jonah Goldberg. It was Antonio Gramsci, an Italian communist, who invented the prime tactic used today by American communists, most prominently the democommunist party. That is: Cultural Marxism. Gramsci taught that the United States, the West, couldn’t be taken down head on. The culture was too strong and ingrained.So the various facets have to be attacked one by one, e.g., education, family, law, media, religion, etc. The founders have to be smeared and the constitution attacked as being out of date, etc. I don’t know that Gramsci ever envisioned the help in that endeavor that the mentally ill woke would provide.

C P Apala Jr
1 year ago

The pendulum of democracy is swinging far too close to socialism. The left has targeted our children for indoctrination into unholy humanism with a vengeance. We have been standing in ignorance far too long, and giving ground to these socialist thugs for years. When the rule of law is only applicable to those that follow Biblical principals, and those that preach ungodlyness are above reproach justice is no longer applicable. We must start holding them, the left, accountable. I watched as domestic terrorist burn down cities, raped pillaged and plundered, in the name of socialism with no accountability, in fact were celebrated as heroes by elected officials in Washington and various blue states. At what time do we draw a line in the sand and stand by it? When is it enough? The power in Washington must be cut off. They groom our children for unspeakable violations and turn them against their parents and God. They teach drivel in universities , and impose their agendas on our televisions within our homes. Because we need re-educating. They de-moralize life, love, marriage, and sex. Life is nothing more than monetary gain for them. Thier lives is all that has value to them, and their power over the populous is a narcotic greater than any known to man.

Don
1 year ago

It takes a pretty low breed of human to call other people what they themselves are when they themselves are the criminal fascists like Biden and crew.

Jawad
1 year ago
Reply to  Don

It takes a MARXIST following Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: commit any outrage and then accuse your opponent of doing what you have just done.

vann n daugherty
1 year ago

Democrats are busy removing our elective constitutional republic’s checks and balances. We certainly will have some kind of democracy as Wanda Sikes and Cobert says we should shut up and do what we are told.

Jawad
1 year ago

J Edgar Hoover explained it all in Masters of Deceit: how the Communist belongs to a new religion that worships POWER. They will commit any act, however immoral or illegal to neutralize or destroy any perceived opponent.

Stephen Russell
1 year ago

Note Red backdrop: tip to China & Xi??
Note speech made
Then next day Biden cant recall speech made

After reading your article, I have some doubts about gate.io. I don’t know if you’re free? I would like to consult with you. thank you.