My latest in PJ Media:
Matt Lewis is yet another Never-Trump house conservative for the Left, retailing Leftist talking points that are supposed to sway conservative Trump supporters since they come from someone with such an impressive conservative pedigree. Lewis has worked for the Leadership Institute, written for Human Events and the Daily Caller, and won an award from the American Conservative Union. But all that was just a warm-up. Now young Lewis has rocketed to the big time: serving as a stooge for the Left, stirring up the hysteria and division that increasingly mars the public square today, and sniping at Trump in the Daily Beast.
Demonstrating that he has mastered the key tactic of the Left today — wild, fact-free mudslinging — Lewis writes that Trump “possessed almost all the skills a would-be Mussolini might need. He had the demagogic appeal to a cult-like following, the strongman tendencies (see his personal affinity for dictators), the attacks on democratic norms (his refusal to clearly state that he will respect the election outcome), an unhealthy disregard for the Constitution (‘Article II allows me to do whatever I want’), and a visceral ability to undermine institutions that exist to hold him accountable (‘fake news,’ ‘enemies of the people,’ etc.).”
“A cult-like following”? Lewis’ link leads to a CBS News photo gallery labeled “Extreme Donald Trump fans” and showing the president engaged in such Mussolini-like activities as getting a kiss on the cheek from an elderly woman, and his cult-like supporters showing their religious fervor by behavior such as wearing an NRA t-shirt with a “Trump: Make America Great Again” sticker affixed to it.
Those who are really worried about Trump’s “demagogic appeal” should ask themselves when was the last time they saw a massive personality cult-style poster of the president adorning a public building, a la the portraits of Mao and Xi that one sees everywhere in China. They should compare the CBS photos with old newsreel footage of the hypnotic frenzy Adolf Hitler aroused in his followers.
Does Matt Lewis himself believe this nonsense? Although he apparently hasn’t always been a Leftist, he seems to have mastered the Leftist tactic of playing fast and loose with the facts in order to elicit a visceral reaction from his audience. There is a word for that – what was it again? Oh yeah: demagoguery.
As for Trump not accepting the results of the election, Lewis ignores the fact that when Joe Biden was claiming that Trump would not leave the White House voluntarily if he lost, Trump made it clear that he would abide by the election result and leave office, saying: “Certainly, if I don’t win, I don’t win,” and that if he lost, “you go on, do other things.”
What enrages Lewis and his Leftist colleagues is that Trump is unlikely to emulate Richard Nixon and roll over for dirty tricks. Few people today remember that although Nixon was dubbed Tricky Dick and was famous for political chicanery, in what may have been the biggest heist that involved him, he was the victim. Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster recounts how the 1960 presidential election was extremely close, with Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy winning only 112,000 more popular votes than Nixon. Illinois and Texas decided the contest. Both were quite close themselves: if Nixon had won forty-seven thousand more votes in Texas (home of the notoriously crooked Democratic vice-presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson) and ten thousand in Illinois (where another infamous crook, Democratic machine boss and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley held sway), he would have become president. There was significant evidence that the Kennedy machine had committed voter fraud in both states, but Nixon declined to contest the election, saying that he did not wish to plunge the country into a crisis with the Cold War raging.
There is much more. Read the rest here.