Talk about a lack of self-awareness.
As Iowans were heading to do their caucus voting on that cold Jan. 15, the New York Times took to lecturing Republicans about former President Donald Trump.
The editorial was titled:
And a better example of just why millions of Americans support the former president would be hard to find. In fact, by that very night, Trump was defeating his closest opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by 30 points, winning 51 percent of the vote. (READ MORE: Iowa Knockout: A Caucus Turns Into a Coronation)
So let’s work through this masterpiece of irony and unawareness. With bold print for emphasis supplied here, the editorial board writes:
Republicans who will gather to cast the first votes of the 2024 presidential primary season have one essential responsibility: to nominate a candidate who is fit to serve as president, one who will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Donald Trump, who has proved himself unwilling to do so, is manifestly unworthy. He is facing criminal trials for his conduct as a candidate in 2016, as president and as a former president. In this, his third presidential bid, he has intensified his multiyear campaign to undermine the rule of law and the democratic process. He has said that if elected, he will behave like a dictator on “Day 1” and that he will direct the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and his critics in the media, declaring that the greatest dangers to the nation come “not from abroad but from within.”
First: The multiple criminal charges against Donald Trump are the perfect illustration of a power-crazed political and legal establishment weaponizing government to target a political opponent.
It is the stuff of a banana republic, not the Constitution. Yet there is the New York Times, in the style of the old Soviet Union’s newspaper Pravda, the leading propaganda broadsheet of the Communist Party, pushing the bold lie that Trump, who never used the Department of Justice to prosecute his opponents, would abruptly change course — and do exactly what President Joe Biden himself is now doing.
Anyone who was paying attention to Trump’s interview with Sean Hannity when he discussed being “a dictator” on “Day 1” knows exactly what he was talking about. That would be using the quite legal powers of the presidency to seal the border, halting the flood of illegal immigration — and also restoring a policy of drilling for energy to once again restore the U.S. to energy independence.
And when it comes to Trump using federal authority on the operation of the border? Amusingly, only yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government has authority over Texas when it comes to taking down the “concertina-wire barrier erected by Texas along the Mexican border” (as the Times referred to the decision). Which is to say that, looked at through the Times lens, the court has cleared exactly Biden’s ability to act like a “dictator” and unilaterally take down the Texas border wire that the governor of Texas had erected to protect Texas citizens. One feels certain the Times approves of Joe the Dictator on the border wire.
The Times goes on to say:
Mr. Trump’s record of contempt for the Constitution — and his willingness to corrupt people, systems and processes to his advantage — puts all of it at risk.
Really? Really? It is Biden who has, according to the Times itself, “confided to his inner circle” that Trump was “a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted.” And, presto, the Biden Justice Department, breaking 200 plus years of precedent, has set about using the Department of Justice to prosecute Biden’s leading opponent.
Not a peep of objection from the Times.
The paper goes on to airily preach:
Upholding the Constitution means accepting the results of elections.
Yet the Times seems not to have taken that message to Hillary Clinton or Georgia defeated Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams.
The New York Times criticizes Trump for “repeatedly” having “attacked the integrity of other government officials,” including “federal judges.” Apparently, the editorial board has missed headlines like this one over at Newsweek:
Joe Biden Steps Up Attack on Supreme Court
Biden’s wrath targeting the court is, of course, because the Supremes had the audacity to rule that abortion’s Roe v. Wade was unconstitutional. But it’s OK for this president to attack the court for that.
In classic style, the New York Times ends its lecture to Republicans saying, without a trace of irony, that:
Mr. Trump is now distinguished from the rest of the Republican candidates primarily by his contempt for the rule of law. The sooner he is rejected, the sooner the Republican Party can return to the difficult but necessary task of working within the system to achieve its goals.
In other words? Repeatedly standing up for Joe Biden’s contempt for the law and simply ignoring Biden’s corruption of the Department of Justice to target his leading political opponent is a class example of the Times’ and the larger American Left’s utter contempt for the Constitution and for Americans themselves.
And it is exactly this two-tiered standard of justice — one standard for the Left and another altogether for conservatives and Trump supporters — that is unquestionably fueling the energy of the Trump base.
And the response of Iowa voters on the very day that editorial was published?
They voted for a Trump landslide.