Democrats would have you believe that our very democracy is at risk in the 2024 election. They may be right, but not for the reason they say.
That’s because in the past, the low-level demagoguery of American politics was never really existential. A Republican who accused a Democrat of “defunding the police” might well find herself working on a piece of legislation with that very person, who in turn likely accused her of “making raped women have babies” during the heat of campaign season.
That sort of language just comes with the job. But the language the Democrats and the critics are using to describe Donald Trump has now gone so far beyond the pale that it is frightening.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has claimed, without any real basis, that this coming election “may well be the last real vote you ever get to cast. It will be that bad.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has said that “Donald Trump… is a clear and present threat to American constitutional democracy….”
Hillary Clinton says that electing Trump “would be the end of our country as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly.”
We can only assume she didn’t say the next thing out of her mouth lightly, either, when she reminded everyone that “Hitler was elected.” (Which is not true, by the way, although he did come to power through legal channels.)
But Clinton was saying the quiet part out loud.
This is all something new to our country. Politicians have always attacked the other side. And they’ve always issued dubious dire warnings about what would happen if the other side wins. In 2012 Joe Biden warned that Mitt Romney was going to put Black Americans “back in chains.” Mitt Romney!
But equating the other side with Nazis threatens our democracy in a way that could well make a self-fulfilling prophecy out of the Democrats’ warnings about our republic’s stability.
Let’s suppose for a second that Democrats really believe Trump is Hitler, but that they aren’t successful in convincing voters. Perhaps they think that a lot of what has been said about the former president is an exaggeration, especially the idea that he is Hitler. And maybe he wins in 2024. What happens then?
Will Democrats accept the outcome of the election? It is easy, after all, to do that when your primary objection to a candidate was that you didn’t like his proposals for Social Security. But if you really believe that he is a fascist bent on dictatorial overthrow, then how can you give your seal of approval to him becoming commander in chief? Would it not be your “patriotic duty” to block him from taking office, even perhaps through illegal means?
To some people, that would smack of election denialism, tampering and perhaps “insurrection.” But if Trump really is Hitler, then don’t the ends justify the means?
What if you are a civil servant at some agency, and you really believe that Trump is going to dismantle our democracy and install himself as a dictator? Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to frustrate his every initiative? Maybe you could justify it in your own head as being something that saves the nation.
And why should that duty end with just not voting to certify an election or summoning the power of the “Deep State”? It doesn’t’ take much to extend the argument to its logical extreme: After all, how many times have we played the morality game of going back in time to the 1920s to ponder whether you would kill Hitler if you had the chance?
Trump is often — and correctly — excoriated for his language (or his silence) that some deranged individuals might take as a subliminal message to engage in violence. But aren’t Hillary Clinton or Liz Cheney at risk of doing the same? Raskin didn’t call out Trump as a “clear and present danger” in some off-the-cuff remarks at a fundraiser. Those words were part of his written statement as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
By the way, for those who didn’t go to law school (or who have forgotten the Tom Clancy novels), “clear and present danger” is actually a term with specific legal significance. It implies that there is a real and imminent threat of “substantive evil.” And if the threat exists, the government is justified in limiting your freedoms.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, and on both sides of the political spectrum. There is a group that apparently thinks he is ordained by God to lead the country, a small subset of which might even, say, riot against the government at his instruction.
But it’s the other side that worries me more right now. Because left-wing believers that Trump is Hitler control heavyweight institutional authorities: the faculty and staff at leading universities, the Department of Justice (and much of the executive branch) and probably 95 percent of the mainstream media.
That latter group especially is in a position to do much more damage to our democracy if they don’t like the outcome of the 2024 election.
“You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said in his Valley Forge speech last week. He is right. But will Democrats take the same attitude if Trump wins in November?
Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and acting White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.