Op-Ed: The Aftermath of No Kings and the Warning it Sends to Us All

With millions participating in the recent No Kings protests, it might seem that Donald Trump was a heartless autocrat trampling the Bill of Rights, silencing dissent, and bullying the nation on the road to ruin.

But in objectively reviewing his accomplishments, our nation’s long history of freedom, and the institutional checks and balances within our constitutional system, it should be clear that what is fueling those demonstrations is not tyranny from our 47th president.

Instead, what those masses should really be protesting is being misled by despotic characterizations of Trump by progressive politicians, knowingly reinforced by their shameless partners in disinformation, the mainstream media.

A small sampling of leftist accusations linking Trump to kingly repression would have to include unspecified “evidence” from before the recent presidential election, when Kamala Harris claimed that Trump was “dangerous,” that he was “unfit to be president,” and that he wanted to “terminate the Constitution.”

If those demonizing slanders weren’t enough, Harris also asserted that Trump is a fascist and, in jeopardizing democracy, was “increasingly unhinged and unstable.” To that, President Biden added that Trump “has no character, and “we gotta lock him up.”

More recently, totalitarian descriptions of Trump by Democrat politicians have continued, with Rep. Jasmine Crockett defining Trump as a “wannabe Hitler” and a “piece of s**t.”

And after the president sent the National Guard to quell the Los Angeles riots, Mayor Karen Bass called that deployment “the act of a dictator,” and Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed it was a “flagrant violation of our Constitution.”

But the woke media has also reinforced the farcical notion that all which separates Trump from Hitler is 80 years and a swastika. Examples abound, including that less than a year before his reelection, liberal-leaning Reddit ran the headline “A Trump Dictatorship is inevitable.”

And that inflammatory header was supported by MSNBC, in reporting that Trump’s pre-election rally at Madison Square Garden was “chilling because in 1939… a different fascist leader, Adolf Hitler, packed the Garden [as a] staging ground for extremism.”

Moreover, shortly after taking office, the Associated Press claimed that Trump was starting a “teardown of the federal government.” And not outdone with more of the same, No Kings, no-sense lunacy, The New York Times hyperbolically declared that “the first 100 days of Trump’s second term have done more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction.”

Resulting from such fictions, an ABC News poll just before the election reported that 49 percent of voters considered Trump to be a fascist dictator. And another poll from the Public Religion Research Institute reported that 52 percent of respondents believed that Trump fit the description of a “dangerous dictator whose powers should be limited before he destroys the American democracy.”

Driven by progressive distortions of Trump’s actions, it is thus no surprise that No Kings marches have recently occurred throughout our nation. And with such omnipresent portrayals of Trump as a ruthless tyrant, it would only be surprising if that weren’t so.

But portraying Trump as an “existential threat to democracy” contradicts reality. At a minimum, believing Trump would or even could replace 250 years of the American republic with authoritarian rule borders on insanity or, at least, imbecilic stupidity.

If Trump were a dictator, his actions would mirror known tyrants such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, or Ali Khamenei in undoubtedly silencing all dissent, starting with the No Kings protests and ending with eliminating oppositional media sources.

So, the very conspicuous acts of openly opposing “Trump’s dictatorship” through rallies, media outlets, and unfettered public comments clearly demonstrate that saving what doesn’t need saving is a performative act based on underlying hatred more than on undeniable reality.

That is even more so because free expression, in general, and opposition to presidential overreach, in particular, are guaranteed by our Constitution. Yet checks and balances, a legislature that hardly rubber-stamps dictatorial excesses, an independent judiciary, a Bill of Rights, and free elections, all unknown in dictatorships, are the very safeguards protestors claim are endangered and will magically vanish at the whim of Donald Trump.

But since the best evidence of what a president will do is past actions, what Trump has achieved since his reelection is clear evidence that the president neither has the ability nor the desire to stage that unfathomable sleight-of-hand transformation.

Since his reelection, Trump has secured our border, improved our economy, promoted law and order at home, and brought peace around the world. He has also been twice recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize, and as a so-called “wannabe Hitler,” has become a national hero in Israel.

Tyrants start wars. Trump has sought to end them. Tyrants care little about the “common people.” Trump, with his economic focus, has done all he can to enrich them. And tyrants increase the size and power of government. Trump has reduced both through tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks, and cutting government waste.

Propagandized by the mainstream media and duped by agenda-driven far-left politicians, No Kings, no-sense protesters are not bad people, but are likely just not paying attention to what should be evident to anyone not infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. And that is, none of Trump’s actions or historic accomplishments are consistent with those of authoritarian dictators. Not any.

The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either d or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.

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