Column: Who Sounds Silly Lecturing Conservatives About Authoritarianism?

On the third anniversary of the January 6 riot at the Capitol, Joe Biden and the Democrats still operate as if this one terrible afternoon is the number-one issue of the 2024 campaign.

In a new campaign ad, President Biden proclaims “I’ve made the preservation of American democracy the central issue of my presidency.” He says he and Vice President Harris have pushed for voting rights since Day One of the Biden administration, and “I ask every American to join me in this cause.”

Democrats pose as the guardians of democracy, and smear the Republicans as pushers of autocracy. No one expects the “independent fact-checkers” to look at this Biden-Harris ad and question how their alleged stand for democracy and voting rights stands next to Biden backers trying to rip Donald Trump off primary ballots and deny any Biden-challenging Democrats access to primary ballots.

Biden and his media enablers clearly think they can acquire the votes of people disgusted by Trump’s stubborn refusal to concede defeat in 2020 (and his reluctance to stop rioting on January 6) by just citing “democracy” as the all-encompassing issue that cancels all focus on their failures, from inflation to immigration. They’re clearly unwilling to hear arguments that Democrats are the ones who are carrying around the seeds of authoritarianism in their policies. Here’s a short list: