Trump won by uniting those who think liberal rulers have gone too far:
Was Trump the moral equivalent of Hitler? Was censorship necessary to protect democracy in the digital age? Is our country a land of freedom or of monstrous racial and sexual oppression? Arguments raged back and forth.
The American voters have rendered a decisive verdict on many of these questions. Let’s consider some of the most momentous.
Censorship campaign
We are living through a moment of revolt, not reaction. That was not at all apparent before the election.
In the last four years, the progressive establishment, centered around the Biden administration and the federal bureaucracy but including the news media, academia, Hollywood and most of our dominant institutions, erected structures of control without precedent in American history.
The intent was to cage an unruly public that, in 2016, had propelled Trump to the White House.
On the pretext of representing science during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government mandated school closings, lockdowns and vaccinations, with shamings and firings meted out to those who dissented.
Government censorship was imposed over digital media, first on those who disagreed with the official doctrines about COVID-19, then on Trump and his allies and supporters, finally on any opinion — for example, on the Ukraine war — that the ruling elites found offensive.
Some individuals, like Trump, were entirely silenced on social media, even as millions of posts by ordinary Americans were taken down on the orders of the Biden White House and the FBI.
Wielding the law-enforcement power of government, political opposition was criminalized.
Trump was indicted 116 times, convicted once, and fined $454 million, all in Democratic-friendly jurisdictions. The desire to annihilate the former president before the 2024 election lacked even the pretense of subtlety.
Several Trump-adjacent persons, like Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, ended up in prison for their troubles. The Jan. 6 rioters, supposed foot soldiers of Trump’s “insurgency,” were punished with extraordinarily long sentences.
Tulsi Gabbard, who humiliated Harris in a 2019 Democratic nomination debate, was placed without notice on the travel watch list reserved for potential terrorists.
‘Regaining control’
At the height of the period of control, the Biden administration was seized with a sort of inebriation about the weird and wonderful things it could cram down our culture’s throat.
Men were ushered into women’s sports and women’s bathrooms. That tracked with the Supreme Court nominee, now a justice, who was unable to describe what a woman was because she lacked a medical degree.
“Equity,” or numerically perfect outcomes for protected minorities, was ordained for anyone who did business with the federal government.
For no particular reason, millions of undocumented foreigners were invited to pour into the country, to be distributed among our urban centers at the whim of the administration.
Anything was possible. An enfeebled President Biden, who could scarcely join three words together without sounding dotty, was made out to be a zesty, energetic senior totally in command of the nation’s business. When that story fell apart after the disastrous debate with Trump, Biden was simply swapped out for Harris, who hadn’t earned a single vote in the Democratic primaries.
To many intelligent observers, it appeared that a reactionary establishment had snuffed out the embers of revolt. “The institutions are regaining control,” wrote media scholar Andrey Mir.
“The Restoration has begun.”
Reality check —>READ MORE HERE
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