The delusions of modern authoritarianism

The pot calls the kettle black

So, as the election campaign comes to a thankful end, we finally know what progressives think of conservatives—as if we didn’t before.

On the one hand, if we listen to Kamala Harris, we are all followers of a Hitlerian fascist dictator, which of course makes us all fascists, too. On the other hand, if we listen to Joe Biden, we are floating garbage. We can’t decide which is worse—being aggressive oppressors who will likely burn in hell for our Nazi sins, or just being useless human detritus drifting about on an ocean barge waiting for the next available incinerator.

The accolades for our ilk continued to pile up the closer we got to election day. Writing in the New York Times last Wednesday, David Leonhardt explained just why he thinks a comparison between MAGA and the Nazis is more than a rhetorical exercise and that in fact Trump poses a unique threat to democracy: According to Leonhardt, he has threatened to prosecute his critics; he will try to censor and silence his critics; he will reward his allies and campaign donors; he will replace federal employees with loyalists; he will undermine previously enacted policies; and he will refuse to transfer power peacefully if he loses.

That’s a lot to unpack, but you get the point. If Trump wins, democracy is done. To paraphrase The Washington Post, democracy dies in MAGAland. It might be noted that The Washington Post might also die in MAGAland, having lost 10 percent of its subscribers after Jeff Bezos refused to endorse Harris.

Anyway, the first thing to recognize is that totalitarians—and that’s what the Democratic Party has become populated with, which is why real democrats have fled it—have a history of accusing the people they oppress of oppressing them. Psychologists call it ideological projection, somewhat peculiar to the left’s own idiosyncratic disorders; in modern culture we call it gaslighting.

Just as our progressives today pose as defenders of democracy, so have their ideological ancestors: The German Democratic Republic, aka East Germany; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The truth is, not many real democracies actually use the term “democratic” or “people’s republic” in their official name, but decidedly anti-democratic countries do just that.

In part, oppressors have a psychological need to convince themselves they are actually the good guys. They wrap themselves in the use of “democracy” in their names and slogans—Democracy dies in Darkness—and portray all others except themselves as threats to that democracy. Because they are weak, they actually convince themselves of their rhetoric.

Part of it is tactical. ….