3313
32
Nora Pullen’s column, ominously entitled “How Authoritarianism Creeps In: Lessons from a Childhood Under Dictatorship,” makes the typical, tired, factually weak accusations against the Trump administration, but unwittingly reminds us of the actual authoritarianism we saw under Biden.
Before I continue, I would like to say how happy I am that Ms. Pullen emigrated from Romania as a child to come to the freedom of the United States. And that I am impressed with her grandfather’s courage and bravery in protecting his Catholic faith and that of his congregation under true authoritarian oppression.
It is quite ironic, then, that Ms. Pullen is so concerned with what is happening with the Trump administration when it was the FBI under the Biden administration who targeted faithful Catholics for surveillance, who jailed grandmothers and innocent fathers for peacefully protesting at abortion clinics. To me, that seems much more like the actions of an authoritarian regime, especially when contrasted with the work Trump has done to strengthen religious liberty.
Ms. Pullen compares the fear that she and her neighbors had of the secret Romanian police and of being informed on by local conspirators to the temporary suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. Yes, it was stupid for the FCC commissioner to comment on that issue like he did, but the decision was made not by government fiat but because two of the largest syndicates threatened to pull his show. The reason wasn’t because Kimmel was critical of Trump, but because he lied about the political affiliation of Charlie Kirk’s assassin, a dangerous and highly insulting thing to do so soon after this tragic death.
And let us recall that Charlie Kirk was the foremost advocate for free speech and for discussing our problems rather than resorting to violence, which is what the Left is doing more and more. Why did Trump call the National Guard into Los Angeles and Chicago? Not for some vague fit of authoritarian angst, but because leftist agitators were physically attacking ICE agents. The president has the authority and obligation to deploy the National Guard to protect federal law enforcement, especially when local police are ordered not to by feckless Democratic mayors and governors.
As a conservative, I am not always comfortable with Trump’s tactics and have sympathy for the illegal immigrants who came here under Biden and others, thinking it was ok to do so because we encouraged it to a large degree. But the fact is that ICE is simply carrying out federal law whereas the Biden administration actively ignored it when it came to immigration. We can argue about whether the laws should be changed, but we should not be surprised when it is properly enforced and when the president seeks to protect ICE agents when they are physically assaulted just for doing their job.
The section of Ms. Pullen’s column that most irked me was her list of “four warning signs of authoritarian behavior: rejecting democratic rules, denying the legitimacy of opponents, tolerating or encouraging violence, and curtailing civil liberties.” If by democratic rules, does she mean the Democrat’s desire to eliminate the Senate filibuster or extend healthcare to illegal aliens when it has been prohibited? Or how about Biden’s multiple violations of his constitutional authority when he extended Covid-era rules on rent or granted student loan forgiveness merely to buy votes?
How about “denying the legitimacy of opponents”? Democratic leaders routinely call Republicans “fascists” and refer to ICE as the gestapo, even as leftwing extremists ramp up the violence. They hate their political opponents and celebrate when someone like Charlie Kirk is killed because they truly believe conservatives are reprehensible and evil. They accuse conservatives of thinking the same way, but this is a classic case of projection. You just don’t hear the same vitriol and de-humanizing hatred coming from our side. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised since a cornerstone of Democratic political philosophy is the dehumanization of the infant in the womb.
Tolerating or encouraging violence? Does Ms. Pullen actually think we are guilty of that when it is her side that is doing the vast majority of violent acts, up to and including assassination and the murder of children in church? And not only that, but many on their side celebrate such heinous acts. Give me a break. When the nut job, who apparently thought he was doing Tim Walz’s bidding, killed those Democrat politicians in Minnesota, did any conservative celebrate? No, of course not. We all condemned it and any other such violence done for political reasons.
And finally, Ms. Pullen claims that civil liberties are being curtailed. Um, how, exactly? Even if we take her mis-representation of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension at face value, he was still allowed to say whatever he wanted. He just wasn’t going to get paid for doing so. But that wasn’t the case for conservative voices under the Biden administration. Documents and testimony prove conclusively that the Biden administration colluded with social media companies to silence voices that were critical of government Covid policies and support of transgenderism. That is literal government censorship and that was under Democratic leadership. And we don’t even need to go into the coordinated attack by Democrats to undermine the first Trump administration with the lies about Russia and the lawfare attacks on Trump during his campaign in 2023 and 2024.
Our side didn’t want to suppress the free speech of the Left, but instead just wanted the ability to be able to speak freely on social media. Now we can do so again not thanks to Democrats, but to courageous people like Elon Musk and, yes, Donald Trump, the so-called authoritarian. Strongly criticizing his political opponents or violent protestors, sending troops to protect ICE agents, indicting Comey for lying to Congress may all be things you don’t like, but they don’t deserve to be labeled as authoritarianism, especially if you were silent about the myriad abuses under Biden.
Once again, I applaud Ms. Pullen and her heroic grandfather for their resistance to the true authoritarianism of Romania’s communist regime, but would ask her to reconsider her intemperate accusations and inflammatory rhetoric aimed at an administration who is simply trying to undo the damage of her preferred political party over the past 4 years.
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.