In speeches throughout his time in office (and in particular starting with the 2022 midterms), President Biden has warned a second Trump term would herald the “end of democracy.” But if anything, Biden is late to the party. The corporate media were doomsaying about democracy’s brutal demise as far back as early 2021, and their rhetoric has only grown more absurd since then.
The most obvious issue with this dire warning, other than its absurd overuse by journalists loyal to liberals, is that it always entails an almost comically vague, ever-changing definition of “democracy.”
For three years, washed-up security analysts have warned that, unless former President Trump goes to prison for his alleged role in January 6, democracy is dead. But that trend started as far back as even January of 2021, when MSNBC contributor and former Watergates prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks pontificated: “It is the end of democracy if we do not take and hold the President accountable for what he inspired.”
By that point, the DNC operatives in the news media had already branded Republicans the anti-democracy party. On October 12 of 2021, CNN contributor and former Clinton aide Paul Begala warned that, if Democrats ever lost power again, democracy would be over forever:
I’ve got a piece coming out tonight or tomorrow [about this] on cnn.com — shameless plug — and I really don’t think this is hysterical. I’m a pretty moderate guy. If the Democrats fail, it might be the end of American democracy.
In December of 2022, MSNBC host Ali Velshi remarked while filling in on The Last Word that Moore v. Harper — a gerrymandering case concerning the North Carolina redistricting map — “could be the end of democracy if it goes the wrong way.” Velshi was far from alone in his assessment. In October of that same year, the ACLU put out a podcast episode about Moore titled, “This Supreme Court Case Could Upend Democracy.”
In June 2023, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell agreed enthusiastically with Mount Holyoke College president-elect Danielle Holley when she remarked that the Dobbs decision was “a case that could end democracy.” A few weeks later, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece titled, “How the end of Roe turned into a threat to American democracy.”
Do these ideologues really think any of these events will result in the mass-disenfranchisement of millions of Americans? Presumably not, but then what is their definition of democracy?
The truth, as most have probably realized, is that “democracy” is simply a stand-in term for the DNC agenda. The Republican-favored North Carolina congressional map threatened “democracy” because it would’ve made it harder for the Democrats to win seats in that state. The overturning of Roe v. Wade also threatens “democracy” because it strips abortion, a sacred calf of the Democratic Party, of its constitutional body armor.
But a Trump presidency would be most dangerous of all for “democracy” since a Republican in the White House would threaten all of the “progress” the Democratic Party has made over the last three and a half years.