Ever since Donald Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his run for president, certain Democrats and “Never Trumpers” have been inventing and rolling out one fabricated, dangerous and divisive charge after another.
One of the latest they have been running up the flagpole is that Trump will become a dictator who would refuse to leave the White House once his next term is up. It is all the rage among multiple liberal media outlets, while the main talking point of the Biden campaign seems to have morphed into “democracy is at stake” if Trump wins in November.
Really? I am old enough to remember that when the election was called for Joe Biden back in November 2020, then-President Trump exited the White House peacefully as he returned to private life.
And yet, in a post on X to “celebrate” the anniversary of D-Day, Hillary Clinton cravenly wrote this: “Eighty years ago today, thousands of brave Americans fought to protect democracy on the shores of Normandy. This November, all we have to do is vote.” A message many are interpreting as a not-so-veiled blending by Clinton of Trump, Hitler and the Third Reich. It is wrong for Clinton to soil the memories of those World War II heroes with crass, bitter and hate-filled vitriol.
It was reported that one Democratic consultant went so far as to say: “The Republican Party is basically a domestic terrorist cell at this point, and they should be treated as such.” Honestly, is that the type of threatening rhetoric some in the Democratic Party want to sanction?
Such language and speculation are, of course, irresponsible and potentially dangerous. But it is language and speculation with a purpose: to frighten enough gullible or ill-informed Americans into voting for Biden in November to “save America.”
However, while speaking with some Democratic friends, a reverse scenario was brought up, albeit mostly tongue-in-cheek. That scenario being that what if, quite ironically, it was Biden who either postponed the election out of fear of “MAGA unrest and rebellion” or simply refused to leave the White House upon losing in November?
“Outrageous,” some on the left might state. “How dare you spout such inflammatory, reckless nonsense,” liberal pundits might add. Objections they never raise when they are saying the exact same things about Trump. Interesting how that works.
The scenarios regarding Biden either postponing the election or refusing to leave the White House centered on two main areas. The first is that some in the media — with a wink from the Biden White House — seem to be purposely fanning the winds of civil war in the nation. That theory being that as the millions of Trump supporters become more and more enraged by his conviction in the Manhattan trial or the prospect of him being imprisoned, they will take to the streets in mass anarchy, forcing Biden to postpone the election.
While that might be acceptable fiction for a woke Hollywood movie, it bears no resemblance to reality. Maybe the liberal activists pushing that theory were thinking instead about the far-left anarchists who rioted and vandalized for weeks without accountability after the death of George Floyd, causing billions of dollars in damage.
As it turns out, what those “crazed” MAGA supporters did immediately after Trump was found guilty — in what many believed was a sham trial meant to keep him off the ballot in November by weaponizing the law — was to peacefully help raise a record-breaking $53 million in 24 hours. No rioting. No vandalizing. No marching in the streets with pitchforks and torches.
Next, we come to a more worrisome scenario. That being the concerns about President Biden’s cognitive abilities. An issue the Wall Street Journal just highlighted in an article titled “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.”
As the Journal reported: “The 81-year-old Biden is the oldest person to hold the presidency. His age and cognitive fitness have become major issues in his campaign for a second term. … Some who have worked with him, however, including Democrats and some who have known him back to his time as vice president, described a president who appears slower now.”
As if to confirm the suspicions of a coverup, the Journal reported that the White House kept close tabs on some its interviews with Democratic lawmakers. “They just, you know, said that I should give you a call back,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), referring to the White House.
Seemingly as in “forget what I said. This is what they told me to say.” Or, for the rest of us: “Are you going to believe your lying eyes or what the Biden White House is telling you?”
In speaking with my Democratic friends regarding Biden’s cognitive abilities, a question was raised: What if he loses to Trump in November but can’t process that he lost and refuses to concede? Again, based upon the poisonous “what ifs” being directed at Trump by many on the left, Biden is also fair game for such speculation.
But … he should not be.
How much better if the fearmongering stops and we all agree that neither Trump nor Biden will ever become a dictator and that neither Trump nor Biden will ever refuse to leave the White House when their term is up.
As fictional President Andrew Shepherd stressed in the movie “The American President”: “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship … We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.”
Agreed. Let’s get serious.
Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.