WHO’S the authoritarian again, now?
The incomparable John Hayward, a/k/a Doc Zero lays down some more of his usual 120-octane, big-T Truth for us.
For all the howling about Trump’s “authoritarian tendencies,” there is no question whatsoever that Americans were more free during his term, and it’s a safe bet they would become more free if he runs and defeats Joe Biden in 2024.
This is one reason the NeverTrumpers can’t connect with any significant portion of the Republican electorate. They’re getting real authoritarianism shoved down their throats right now. The Dems just stole another trillion dollars from them with a fraud “inflation reduction” bill.
All of the money Democrats stole will be devoted to cracking down on the American people, reducing their freedoms, taking more of their money away, forcibly reducing their “carbon footprints” by making their lives worse, and pushing collectivist ideology.
We’re living in a time when fascist government/corporate speech control partnerships are the order of the day. The ruling party doesn’t even try all that hard to disguise its censorship orders to corporate lackeys. Meanwhile, the bureaucracy is utterly weaponized against us.
A growing number of issues are taken out of our hands. We’re told we’re no longer allowed to vote on matters “settled” by “expert consensus.” The bureaucracy we never get to vote against, which can fight back against even our elected representatives, grows bigger and richer.
Trump didn’t do those things to us. He wasn’t thinking about ways to make the American people smaller by making the State bigger. He wasn’t busy weaponizing every federal office to go after his enemies. Frankly, he didn’t pay *enough* attention to the Permanent State.
It’s a sad commentary on our corrupt system that you have to put a Republican in the White House if you want adversarial media coverage, or bureaucratic checks and balances against executive power. At least the growth of authoritarianism slows a little.
But Trump deserves more credit than just being flummoxed by a system that didn’t want his hand on the levers of authoritarian power. He didn’t devote his administration to attacking and subjugating the American people, like Biden does. He didn’t try to make us smaller.
He didn’t work from the assumption that every problem in America is the fault of its damnable people, the way Dems do. He wasn’t obsessed with creating a punitive State or putting America last on the world stage. He didn’t have the contempt for us that pumps the Left’s blood.
He most certainly didn’t. And that carries a hidden irony along with it. Trump’s unalterable belief in the fundamental righteousness of America and his faith in the essential decency of her people are simultaneously both appealing…and a YUUUGE factor in his downfall.













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