Democrats, media increase specter of Trump dictatorship as former president solidifies lead in GOP race

By Carolina Stanton On Dec 6, 2023

Former President Donald Trump’s commanding lead within the Republican presidential major is upsetting Democrats and the media more and more to warn voters that Mr. Trump would change into a dictator who abandons the Constitution in a second time period.

The New York Times and The Washington Post have revealed articles in latest days previewing a Trump dictatorship. The Atlantic stated this week it’s going to dedicate its January/February challenge to articles forecasting Mr. Trump’s dangerous impression on civil rights, the Justice Department, immigration and extra if he’s elected once more.

Asked throughout a televised city corridor occasion Tuesday if he plans to change into a dictator, Mr. Trump laughed off the suggestion.

“No, no, no — other than Day One,” he stated. “We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

To many Republicans, Democrats’ newest line of assault is an effort to scare into motion left-wing voters unenthusiastic about reelecting President Biden subsequent 12 months; greater than half of Democratic voters need one other candidate.

Republican strategist John Feehery, a accomplice at EFB Advocacy in Washington, stated Democrats and the media are elevating fears of a Trump dictatorship as a result of “they think he is going to win and they are completely panicked.”

“I don’t know how somebody who doesn’t have functional control over the military or the intelligence community could possibly be a dictator,” he stated. “They [Democrats] don’t have deep faith in our constitutional framework, so they are projecting that lack of faith into Trump. I think it is ridiculous.”

Conservatives say the predictions of a dictatorship are also paying homage to the baseless accusations about Mr. Trump’s “collusion” with Russia in 2016.

“This is all the same ridiculous phony narrative from the same D.C. insiders who told us Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation,” pollster John McLaughlin, who has labored with the Trump marketing campaign, advised The Washington Times. “They lie. They cheat. They deceive. They are so corrupt. Joe Biden and his allies want to put his leading political opponent, President Trump, in jail on phony political charges. It’s un-American.”

He added, “The exploited men and women of America who are suffering from Joe Biden’s failures won’t be fooled again. Inflation is killing us. Illegals are pouring into the country. Crime is up. Terrorists attack Americans and our allies at will. This is why President Trump is beating Joe Biden in the polls.”

Mr. Biden and his allies are stoking these fears. At a Democratic fundraiser in Boston on Tuesday, the president referred to The Atlantic’s upcoming challenge on Mr. Trump in addition to the warnings of Trump foe and former Rep. Liz Cheney.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Mr. Biden, 81, advised Democratic donors. “But we cannot let him win for the sake of our country.”

Ms. Cheney, a Republican, warned on NBC’s “Today” present this week that voters could be “naive” to suppose Mr. Trump would ever relinquish energy once more if he wins a second time period.

“A vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in,” she stated. “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitution.”

Mr. Trump referred to as his longtime foe “unhinged.”

Democrats level to rhetoric of retribution by Mr. Trump and his loyalists that alarms them. For instance, Kash Patel, who was a high deputy within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence underneath Mr. Trump, stated this week that he and different Trump allies will search payback in a second Trump administration towards so-called Deep State actors and media members who’ve facilitated the prosecutions of Mr. Trump and his supporters who protested on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“The one thing we learned in the Trump administration, the first go-round, is we’ve got to put in [government] all American patriots, top to bottom,” Mr. Patel advised podcast host Steve Bannon. “And we’ve got them for law enforcement. We got them for intel collection, we got them for offensive operations. We got them for DOD, CIA, everywhere. We will follow the facts and the law and go to courts of law and correct these justices and lawyers who have been prosecuting these cases based on politics. … We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media.”

He vowed, “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. This is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators.”

Democrats say that form of rhetoric proves their argument that Mr. Trump is raring to work exterior the bounds of the Constitution.

“Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” Mr. Biden advised marketing campaign donors Tuesday. “To his supporters, he says … ‘I am your retribution.’”

The president stated Mr. Trump inspired supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and watched them threaten Vice President Mike Pence.

“And now the same man is promising to pardon those convicted felons and insurrectionists,” Mr. Biden stated. “The same man who said it was time, and I quote, [for the] ‘termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.’ He’s not saying this privately. He’s saying it publicly. He’s attracting supporters by this language.”

Mr. Biden was referring to a Truth Social publish by Mr. Trump in December 2022.

“Now his supporters are saying he should invoke the Insurrection Act to use the military — the U.S. military domestically — [against] political opponents and in American cities,” the president stated.

Democrats consider Mr. Biden stands a greater likelihood towards Mr. Trump in 2024 if the marketing campaign is waged as a battle for the way forward for democracy, moderately than making it a litmus check of Mr. Biden’s report.

“If I’m in the Biden campaign, I would say, bring it on,” former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield stated on CNN. “This is bringing the fight to a place that is good for Joe Biden, that is about who’s protecting your freedoms, who’s protecting your rights.”

Trump marketing campaign aides say the scare ways are groundless and received’t work. Senior Trump adviser Jason Miller stated, “It’s August 2016 all over again.”

“Skyrocketing cost of health care has millions worried. President Trump’s Dem opponent off the campaign trail & hiding from the press,” he stated on social media. “Dems & their media allies have given up on debating issues & have shifted to name-calling & rhetorical fearmongering.”

Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the pro-Trump tremendous PAC Make America Great Again, stated Democrats and the media are giving a preview of Mr. Biden’s presidential marketing campaign subsequent 12 months.

“Their policies failed, so they’ll use fear to get votes by yelling Trump is a ‘dictator’ — as Biden tries to jail his opponent — the hallmark of an *actual* dictatorship,” she posted on X.

Mr. Trump is dealing with 4 felony prosecutions, two of them introduced by the Biden Justice Department. The felony circumstances haven’t hampered the previous president’s unmatched standing because the front-runner for the GOP nomination. The state contests start with the Iowa caucuses Jan. 15.

Some conservatives consider Democrats are taking part in a harmful, irresponsible recreation by portraying Mr. Trump as a dictator-in-waiting. Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, wrote on X that the technique “should probably be given the name ‘Assassination Prep.’”

Sen. J.D. Vance, Ohio Republican, stated Trump opponents “need to take a chill pill.”

He added on social media, “All of these articles calling Trump a dictator are about one thing: legitimizing illegal and violent conduct as we get closer to the election.”

Donald Trump Jr. stated The Atlantic and different media “are calling my father a dictator and trying to normalize violence against him and the MAGA base.”

Former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka commented on X, “If you call President Trump a future dictator, like Liz Cheney is doing here, what are you encouraging crazy Trump haters to do?”

On the marketing campaign path, Mr. Trump says Mr. Biden is the one ruining democratic establishments.

“He’s been weaponizing government against his political opponents like a Third World political tyrant,” Mr. Trump stated of the president at a marketing campaign occasion final weekend in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Biden and his radical left allies like to pose as standing up as allies of democracy. Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy. It’s him and his people. They’re the wreckers of the American dream. The American dream is dead with them in office.”