First, it was Hillary Clinton in 2016: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.” Now, it’s Joe Biden in 2022: “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy … it’s like semi-fascism.” So, he’s done it now, hasn’t he? Mr. Biden, all pumped up and giddy over recent victories benefiting his left-wing base, has managed to one-up Mrs. Clinton in smearing the people – semi-fascists, don’t you know – who dared vote against him in 2020. Indeed, Biden has now completely let the cat out of the bag on how he feels about, oh, half the people living in this country.
Hillary only managed to officially condemn 50% of the 64 million people who would vote for Trump in 2016. Biden, on the other hand, beat her for the blue ribbon by slandering the full 74 million people who pulled the lever for Trump in 2020 as roughly comparable to those responsible for the death of millions of people – and against whom we fought a world war.
Until recently, Biden mostly hid his contempt for Republicans as a whole, focusing his insults on Trump himself. But now, he thinks going after Trump voters – right before they vote – is a wise idea. The setting for his rambling remarks was telling: a high school gym in Rockville, MD, in the heart of the bluest county of a deep blue state – by himself, not with any candidates running for office, since almost none of them want to be seen with a president so unpopular that at least half of his own party wants him off the ballot in 2024.
Now, while we’re at it, let’s get this all straight. It’s worse, we gather, to be half a fascist than a deplorable/irredeemable. Or is it the other way around? If you can be semi-fascist, can you be semi-deplorable, or semi-irredeemable? Maybe these Democrats who’ve lost their minds over MAGA should conduct a lengthy debate to sort out the distinctions.
But when Mr. Biden says, “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans,” he reveals that he must not have been reading the news lately, because these MAGA semi-fascists are the GOP circa 2022. Perhaps it has escaped his notice that virtually all Republicans campaigning for office this year – whether endorsed by Trump or not – are campaigning on the semi-fascist MAGA agenda. Why do you think the neocon Never-Trumpers have been in the throes of a years-long nervous breakdown?
So why not just call the whole GOP fascist? Apparently Biden thinks he can separate the semi-fascists from the non-semi-fascist-but-merely-misguided conservatives who were at least willing to serve as useful idiots for the left with their non-stop ringing condemnation of Trump. He seems to think there are enough embittered Republican establishment types – and gullible independent voters – who will lap up this scandalous rhetoric. The anti-Trump right never let up even through the peace and prosperity of 45’s pre-COVID presidency, advancing most of the policies the Never-Trumpers supported for years – except, of course, new wars. But as Liz Cheney learned the hard way, they are a small and vanishing minority.
Joe Biden (Photo by Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Joe wasn’t done, however, condemning those in favor of the America First agenda with language which – even in the sewer known as politics – is beyond excessive: “They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace political violence. They don’t believe in democracy … the survival of our planet is on the ballot.”
Political violence? Think about that. The president of the United States has judged 74 million of his constituents as guilty because of the excesses of a minuscule minority on a single occasion. Just forget the over 500 progressive-inspired riots, dozens of deaths, and billions in property damage in the summer of 2020, openly ignored or even encouraged by the left. Instead, focus on the single rally-turned-riot supposedly inspired by Trump. It’s proof positive that the GOP is the party promoting political violence.
Just for the heck of it, even though Biden is employing the f-bomb strictly for shock effect, let’s take a moment to revisit what fascism actually is. There are at least four defining characteristics in particular on which most historians would agree about the movement formed by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini more than a century ago: militaristic nationalism, subordination of individual interests to the good of the state, a belief in a natural social hierarchy, and the rule of elites. Does that sound like the stuff of MAGA Republicans? You be the judge.
What ever happened to the unity-drenched pledges of Joe Biden in his inaugural address? Did this president learn anything from the bitter defeat of the woman who preceded him as the Democratic Party’s nominee? Does he honestly think channeling Hillary by demonizing 74 million voters to the cheers of his far-left base is a viable campaign strategy?
He will get his answers on November 8.
