OPINION:
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, chronicled neurotic disorders, including “projection” and other psychological defense mechanisms.
Projection occurs when someone projects their own feelings, motives, behaviors and thoughts onto others. It’s a way of coping with one’s own insecurities and to blame one’s problems on others.
Another Freudian concept is denial. That’s when someone dismisses external reality and formulates his or her own “truth.”
Both disorders are not only rampant among America’s political left but have become tools in their war on common sense, truth and decency.
This has consequences. By painting opponents as “threats to democracy,” they issue a license to would-be tyrants at all levels of government to silence speech.
No one epitomizes this more than President Biden, who has warned darkly that Republicans, White people, conservative Christians and former President Donald Trump are out to destroy democracy and usher in authoritarian government.
Mr. Biden might want to consult a mirror.
His executive agencies have run roughshod over basic civil liberties since he took office. It’s been happening in a manner not seen since the Obama administration.
The Biden regime imposed unconstitutional COVID shot and mask mandates, a ban on evictions, and turned federal agencies against political opponents. He unilaterally tried to shift billions in student debt to taxpayers, declared war on America’s energy industry, issued coming bans on gasoline-powered cars and strong-armed social media into censoring views he doesn’t like.
His Justice Department and other Democratic-run agencies have become a Soviet-style kangaroo system. Mr. Trump is being tried in four different jurisdictions on ridiculous charges, and he has been removed from the ballot by Democrats in Colorado and Maine.
The FBI searched Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and has conducted SWAT-type raids on former Trump officials who pose no physical threat to anyone.
After Elon Musk publicly criticized Democrats before the 2022 midterm election, several government agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, began targeting Mr. Musk’s businesses.
It’s reminiscent of when the Obama administration unleashed the IRS on conservative and tea party groups. They sicced several federal agencies on True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and on her family’s businesses. No one has paid a price for these attacks.
The Biden FBI under Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland has targeted parents at school board meetings and traditionalist Catholics as terrorist threats. They work in lockstep with the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which smears Christian organizations like the Family Research Council as hate groups.
Mr. Biden has opened the border to millions of illegal aliens, along with fentanyl dealers, sex traffickers and potential terrorists.
Authoritarians not only impose draconian measures — they ignore valid laws on the books.
Meanwhile, Biden surrogates in the media and Congress don’t miss a day accusing political opponents of being closet Nazis and White supremacists.
In his bizarre, Sept. 1, 2022, red-lit speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Mr. Biden warned about “dark forces” and “MAGA Republicans,” calling them a “threat to democracy.”
He was at it again on Jan. 5, kicking off his 2024 reelection campaign near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
He began by appropriating George Washington, recounting the Continental Army’s ordeal in the winter of 1777. Democrats demonize America’s founders, but they borrow their moral capital when convenient.
Can you imagine George Washington’s reaction if he were told about Mr. Biden’s beloved drag queen story hours?
“Their mission, George Washington declared, was nothing less than a sacred cause,” Mr. Biden said.
“That was the phrase he used. A sacred cause. Freedom, Liberty. Democracy. American democracy.”
Then Mr. Biden pivoted to his real theme, demonizing Mr. Trump and anyone who supports him, which includes 70 million American voters and perhaps more.
Going on at length about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the gift that keeps on fueling the Democrats’ demagoguery, he called it “a dagger at the throat of American democracy,” and said, “it was on that day that we nearly lost America, lost it all.”
It was bad, but that unarmed riot delayed the Electoral College vote for about six hours. It wasn’t an “insurrection” by a long shot.
“We’re living in an era where a determined minority is doing everything in its power to try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda,” Mr. Biden said.
Yes, but he’s the guilty party. For a guy who likes to end his speeches by invoking God, he might want to read the Book of Romans. He can find it in the New Testament.
The apostle Paul described the ultimate denial of truth — the substitution of man for God on the throne of the universe:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
Paul went on to warn: “They are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.”
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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