Democrats Are Anxious And Uncomfortable. Now They Know How It Feels
A couple of news articles this week intended to instill the usual fear and panic that the dying media love to spread, but for anyone who isn’t a wild and vicious Democrat, they should have made for thoroughly enjoyable reads.
The New York Times on Thursday ran the headline “Trump Escalates Use of Official Power to Intimidate and Punish His Perceived Foes.” The article details individuals and law firms the administration has singled out for either legal probing or exclusion from conducting private business with federal agencies. “President Trump’s first-term efforts to spur law enforcement officials to pursue his political enemies were haphazard, informal and often hashed out in private,” it said. “Now, his demands for investigations are starting to become more formalized through written presidential decrees as he seeks to use the power of public office to punish people and companies he has cast as enemies and silence potential critics.”
In short, Trump recently directed his Homeland Security department to review the professional conduct of an official from his first term (the official had publicly declared he was opposing the administration from within) and ordered the Justice Department to investigate a member of the government’s technical support to determine whether he had illegally shared classified information with unauthorized individuals. Trump also signed an order barring the law firm Susman Godfrey from doing business with his administration, determining the firm to be at odds with his political priorities.
The second article came Monday in The Guardian. “US student journalists go dark fearing Trump crusade against pro-Palestinian speech,” read the headline on top of a story about the “legal repercussions, online harassment and professional consequences” some college-level students are “fearing” because of their public protests and arguments related to the war in Israel. “[S]tudent journalists are retracting their names from published articles amid intensifying repression by the Trump administration targeting students perceived to be associated with the pro-Palestinian movement,” it read.
It’s funny. I don’t recall articles in either publication about the intimidation and fear experienced by anyone who found himself on the receiving end of the Biden administration’s Justice Department. Merrick Garland, President Biden’s pick to lead the agency, went on a four-year manic rampage harassing concerned parents at local school board meetings, protesters praying in front of abortion clinics and anyone who so much as thought about attending the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington (including a former president).
And that’s to say nothing of the dread and anxiety felt by unassuming, relatively apolitical conservative or Republican-voting students on university campuses for decades. They’ve long had to self-censor and avoid political controversy out of legitimate fear that expressing themselves would affect their grades and future employment prospects and lead to social ostracism.
If the tables have turned even a single degree so that belligerent Democrats feel a fraction of the discomfort felt by everyone else until now, it’s a glorious day in America.
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