Democrats are once again practicing one of their favorite political maxims: “Always accuse your enemy of that which you are doing.”
But this time, they are doing so in hilarious fashion.
As the race for the presidency heats up, Democratic lawmakers who were part of the House Select Jan. 6 Committee recently told the Los Angeles Times that they are afraid that they will be arrested if former President Donald Trump wins in November.
Now, as Trump is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination, his criminal trials face delays that could stall them past election day and his rhetoric grows increasingly authoritarian, some of those lawmakers find themselves following their own advice.
In mid-March, Trump said on social media that the committee members should be jailed. In December he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” In August, he said he would “have no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said that if Trump “intends to eliminate our constitutional system and start arresting his political enemies, I guess I would be on that list.”
Not to be outdone, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) also joined in on the pearl-clutching. He indicated that he is having “real-time conversations” with members of this staff to develop a plan to protect him if Trump goes all Stalin on him. “We’ve seen this movie before … and how perilous it is to ignore what someone is saying when they say they want to be a dictator,” he whined.
This is a projection of classic proportions, considering the extent to which the federal government under President Joe Biden has been wielded as a political weapon against political opponents. From the politically motivated prosecutions against the Orange Man What Is Bad™ to efforts against pro-life protesters and labeling parents as "domestic terrorists," it is clear Democrats have absolutely no qualms with using government force to attack those on the other side of the aisle.
Indeed, there has also been the problem of federal agencies trying to crack down on dissenting speech online when it comes to Democrats’ most favored narratives about elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other issues.
The corruption under Biden has been so prevalent that House Republicans have formed their own committee to investigate the weaponization of the government.
Folks like Schiff and Lofgren know they are in no danger of facing politically motivated prosecutions, but they spew this garbage as a way of shaping public opinion by painting Trump as a vindictive dictator. Or, perhaps they know they have skeletons in the closet and are preempting any possible prosecutions coming their way.
Maybe it’s a bit of both.
However, it is abundantly clear that Biden is the one seeking to use the force of the state to advance Democrats’ political agenda. In this charged political environment, it is rather ironic that Democrats are even playing this game. The notion that they actually fear retaliation from the former president only brings Biden’s corruption back into the light. If these folks genuinely want to address the weaponization of government, perhaps they should start in their own tent first.