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Isabelle Williams's avatar

I find it hard to take seriously liberals complaints about Trump being authoritarian or running a "hyper-presidency." You may have a point about some issues. But I was so traumatized, shocked and red pilled by the authoritarianism of the covid regime under Biden, that all I can say now is: "Thank God, we are not living under a Harris/walz administration."

The covid authoritarianism turned civilization upside down for months and then years. Lockdowns, schools closed, mask mandates. Then came the "Get out of Jail Card," thee 98% effective miracle lipid nanoparticle mrna vaccine. Oops, not 98% effective. We soon learned that it did NOT prevent infection or transmission. Yet It was MANDATED by Biden for all federal employees AND contractors. Think about that. Even pregnant women who might be against the vaccine, mistrustful, were forced to get two injections or more into their body. And the mrna vaccine was never studied in pregnant women.

I could write pages about the authoritarianism of the covid regime. Censorship. The Biden admin sent millions sent to universities to monitor disinformation. Not just about covid of course, but any sort of politically inconvenient information. Posts about transgender nuttiness? Censored. Posts criticizing Ukraine war, probably censored also.

Its a sinister joke to claim that Trump is somehow more authoritarian that Biden and the dems. ( Lets remember that Tim Walz set up a fink line in Minneapolis for neighbors to denounce eachother for violating covid rules!) I will never forget and never forgive what my former party did during covid.

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Kenneth Crook's avatar

Remarkable that every time a writer on here publishes something on the authoritarian tendencies of the Trump administration, the most common criticism is whataboutery on the actions taken by the Biden administration during the covid pandemic. These usually forget that Trump was in power for the first year of that crisis. Then they claim some kind of "gotcha" by saying that the vaccines didn't PREVENT transmission. Nobody claimed they would. All vaccines REDUCE the risk of infection, the seriousness of the infection and the chance of transmission. Then they use language to suggest that there is something suspicious about the vaccine ("miracle lipid nanoparticle mRNA"), when in fact the mRNA vaccines, like all others, were tested for safety and efficacy, albeit in an accelerated fashion (and thank goodness for that!). Finally they'll add in pure speculation as if it's fact ( posts criticizing the Ukraine war "probably censored" - probably? Please stick to what you know to be facts).

Looking across several countries, including my own, during the pandemic it was very easy to be critical of what this or that government was doing. I was always glad, however, that it wasn't me making those decisions, as whatever was done was bound to be wrong in some people's eyes.

So instead of always rolling out the same old screeds of grievances about covid policies, why not start by addressing the points raised in the article and then feel free to add something like "but of course one shouldn't forget the measures introduced by the Trump/Biden administrations during the pandemic that I also found to be authoritarian". Then we might actually get somewhere in discussing authoritarianism in all its colors and trying to stop it taking hold in democracies.

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Isabelle Williams's avatar

Authoritarianism is authoritarianism and my point was that it was on steroids during the covid crisis. My repsonse to some of your points:

1. The vaccines were sold by the government as being highly effective in stopping infection and transmission, but they were not. Biden said " When you get the vaccine, covid stops with you." This was false but never corrected and the mandates continued.

2. If the vaccine only serves to reduce the severity of disease, which is rarely severe in many groups, ( the young, the healthy and children) any justification for mandates disappears. Some may think the vaccine is great, they can go ahead and take it. But for God's sake, don't mandate it or allow mandates for children, for young people, for pregnant women.

3. You are wrong about the lipid nanoparticle mRNA vaccine being a typical vaccine. It was a brand new technology, unproven, and with no long term trials on side effects. There is increasing evidence of adverse events especially for people who have gotten a number of shots. The British medical journal has published several studies that demonstrate that for the young, the risk of myocarditis due to the shot outweighs any benefit to them or to the community.

December 2022, BMJ, vaccination risk/benefit not good for young adults.

For every case of covid prevented, numerous serious side effects.

From the British Medical Journal in December 2022:

"To prevent one COVID-19 hospitalisation over a 6-month period, we estimate that 31 207–42 836 young adults aged 18–29 years must receive a third mRNA vaccine. Booster mandates in young adults are expected to cause a net harm: per COVID-19 hospitalisation prevented, we anticipate at least 18.5 serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines, including 1.5–4.6 booster-associated myopericarditis cases in males (typically requiring hospitalisation)."

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Kenneth Crook's avatar

So you agree that the current administration is taking authoritarianism into other areas of how americans live their lives?

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Isabelle Williams's avatar

Yes I am very disappointed in lawfare Trump is engaging in. Again, continuing what Biden admin did but its bad. I am even more disappointed that the admin is not standing up for free speech. They made this a campaign issue, as it should be. JD Vance chastised Europe for their fascist internet directives regarding "hate speech" and disinformation, but which is wildly broad and includes insulting politicians But now the Trump admin is punishing and censoring people who speak out against Israel's war in Gaza. Its terrible.....But sadly, I would vote for Trump again. Because the democrats were so bad. Pronoun police, transgender craziness, the covid stuff discussed above, the list goes on. I lived it personally, so did my friends. We are all former democrats.

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Kenneth Crook's avatar

I agree with all the pandering to extreme identitarianism, but the covid stuff doesn't exercise me too much (apart from keeping schools closed for so long in some states, which was a terrible mistake) since it was an unprecedented healthcare crisis and I think the development of the vaccines was an overall good (I work in biotech so arguably have a different view on this). I think knowing what the right thing to do in such a fast moving situation was hard, and there was no intention that these directives or powers would last indefinitely. This is what I see as being very different under the current administration. The changes are meant to be permanent and are clearly vindictive in many instances. Any future administration is now likely to continue in the same direction and I have a reasonable expectation that the US (whichever side is in charge) will join other countries in the Americas as they take control of the judiciary, the media (which at least currently panders to both sides), and begin to ignore the results of elections. The free speech claims by Trump, Vance etc are just utter hypocrisy, which, if we're honest, we knew they would be.

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Isabelle Williams's avatar

Well I am glad we agree on identitarianism. The covid stuff was dramatic and definitive for myself and other former democrats. Being forced to get multiple vaccines to keep a job becomes very personal. Some of us had college kids who were forced to get four or five mrna vaccines or drop out of college. I know people who had bad side effects from the covid vaccine, including one who blames his heart attack on the vaccine.

The covid authoritarianism opened my eyes to the tremendous danger of government over reach and government power. The government, in "partnerships" with pharmaceutical companies and unelected organizations like the WHO wanted to have over sight of everyone's health, all the time. In my state, they passed an EO to establish quarantine camps for ANY infectious disease with no requirement that it be proven dangerous! And you got out when they decided to let you out!

I realized that progressives want to tell everyone what to do, all the time and about everything. They want to tell you what to do if you have a sniffle or a cough, they want to force you to call a man in a dress " she" or someone else "they". They want to do social engineering in kindergarten by teaching your kids about oppression and trans rights. Government has a role to play for sure. It shoudl protect us against big corporations predation. Instead it has been captured by the big corporations ( including pharma of course).

I am not naive about republicans ( who are also captured). But for now they are much much better on the issues that touch my life and the lives of my children. But I agree that Trump is being authoritarian in some areas.

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Doug Knauer's avatar

You use the phrase unitary executive like a pejorative, but we do only have ...one president. The other two co-equal branches are not similarly constructed and have to deal with that fact when it comes to maintaining equal status and power in their constitutionally assigned lanes versus a strong-willed individual in the office of the president, which is not unique in our history. Unfortunately, Congress soiled itself long ago and created a vast administrative state which reports to, under the constitution, the president. SCOTUS, as it dances between the raindrops of law, politics and power, appears to be trying to buy time for Congress to get its act together because SCOTUS has no enforcement capability.

As a student of governance, I find this fascinating. As a citizen wanting the best outcome for our nation, it is concerning.

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tom robertshaw's avatar

'"soiled itself", beautifully said!

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Bruce Brittain's avatar

"Our democratic survival requires that the presidency be brought back under the system of checks and balances that the Founders envisaged. They would ask no less of us."

Too true, Mr. Ginsburg, but how to do that remains unanswered. The reality of how we got to such a perilous place is that enough voters believed the propaganda of the disinformation industry, birthed in 1989 when Rush Limbaugh made character assassination, conspiracy theories, misogyny, racism and outright lies a successful business model, to put a profoundly unfit man in the White House. Not once, but twice. As long as the bulk of American voters are enthralled by right-wing talk radio, Fox news, its imitators and the bile that oozes out of the Internet, we cannot have a democratic republic. James Madison made it clear with this simple statement: "A democratic republic requires a well-informed electorate." Full stop.

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tom robertshaw's avatar

Only sources on the right? Come on, the left hasn't been using media to propagate untruths? Hunters' laptop, Russiagate... You criticize Fox, et al, an neglect to even mention that the MSM in in the control of progressives, along with our "elite" colleges.

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Bruce Brittain's avatar

As a formally trained journalist and for awhile, early in my checkered career, a practicing one, I always wince when I hear your argument that the MSM is just as bad as the purveyors of outright propaganda on the right. It is a dramatically false equivalency. Of course the MSM has some biases and even gets things wrong but here's the difference (1) their intent was to report accurately even if it turns out it wasn't and (2) where mistakes are reported, corrections are made. The intent of Fox, The Daily Wire, etc, etc is to further the right's agenda. Were Joseph Goebbels alive, Fox and Joe Rogan would have him on their broadcasts to elicit the "real story". Accuracy and truth are of little concern to these outlets The fact that you defend the indefensible as "no worse than the legacy media" is all I need to know about your media literacy. You haven't the ability, or choose not, to separate the chaff from the grain. I strongly stand by my convictions about the damage that the entire non-journalistic propaganda machinery has done to our republic. I'm convinced that James Madison would stand with me.

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tom robertshaw's avatar

Well, I do not trust standard media outlets on either side of the aisle and get my news from independent sources who expose bias like AllSides. I listen to opinion pieces from both sides of the aisle and then fact check when I want to learn more. "Trained Journalists" have been lying to us forever under the cover of "Objective Journalism" to further their, or their owners political goals. We need more folks like Bari Wiess, Sharyl Attkisson, Margaret Hoover, et al. Pew tracks trust in media and progressives have more than conservatives, maybe because of what I said previously. The Biden mental decline and the negative fusillade directed at the WSJ reporters who did a decent job of highlighting the decline is a prime example. Confirmation bias is rampant in traditional media. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/08/republicans-have-become-more-likely-since-2024-to-trust-information-from-news-outlets-social-media/.

Thank goodness the diaspora of journalists from the traditional sources has produced some trustworthy sources, along with a bunch of weirdos.

Peace

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Bruce Brittain's avatar

Thanks for your measured reply, Mr. Robertshaw. I have reviewed the Pew data and find it flawed in a critical way. As the owner of a successful research firm (Brittain Associates, Inc 1980-2003), I have a keen eye for flaws in polling methodology. Pew does not distinguish, in its questions, the difference between national MSM and the likes of Fox, One America News or other right wing cable outlets. Therefore, the basis of trust for a respondent's replies are dependent on which "national news sources" they rely. We don't know that from these data. Perhaps the whole study has cross tabs that break the answers down by "primary national news sources used most", which is a question I'll bet they asked but is not reflected here. Until you break the data down and know what category of national news media the respondent is likely referring to, you don't have much of a useful answer. As we say in the data analysis business, "With one foot in the fire and the other in the ice bucket, on average, you're comfortable". I'll look into some of the other sources you mentioned. Barry Weiss I know. Based on my own experience as a journalist and as an observer of contemporary history and the way it has been covered by the MSM, I find the accusation that they have been "lying to us forever" to be unwarranted. Biased often, true. Mistaken occasionally, also true but they correct. Intentionally misleading all the time for undisclosed nefarious intentions, I don't agree. I'd much rather parse a CBS report for bias and lies than to waste my time trying to find an astute middle of the road, no bias opinion from Sean Hannity.

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tom robertshaw's avatar

As mentioned below, some decent attempt at non-partisanship from Congress to perform its' role can reign in a president who has let the office go to his head. Both parties have participated in "my way or the highway"--pass the bill and then read it to quote Pelosi.

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Jim Harper's avatar

Fine article. I have a quibble with the characterization of Loper Bright as empowering the president's interpretation of laws over executive branch agencies'. By declining to accord special weight to agency interpretations, the ruling seems clearly to reorient agencies to equal litigants against regulated entities and people. The president may be able to force agencies interpretive hands by the power to fire officials and control of the Justice Department lawyers who litigate for agencies. But Loper Bright does not seem to contribute particularly much to the hyper-presidency dynamics described in the rest of the article. It's a small nit, obviously, I hope, and I'm happy to hear arguments that would correct me.

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Tom Ginsburg's avatar

Perhaps I was unclear. Loper Bright disempowered the agencies by moving away from Chevron. It was the executive order that took the further step to centralize interpretation in the White House. That’s what I was trying to emphasize.

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Jim Harper's avatar

Thanks for your reply. I think Loper Bright applies equally whether or not the president has driven an agency's interpretation. By restoring agencies and the president to equal status with other litigants in the courts, Loper Bright seems to strengthen the judicial check on the executive branch. That runs counter to the hyper-presidency thesis -- for the good!

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Tom Ginsburg's avatar

Excellent point. thanks for identifying it.

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Jim Harper's avatar

And thank you for putting up with what could have been one too many comments from me!

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Kees Manshanden's avatar

Those are all valid examples of Trump's abuse of executive power, but I'm disappointed that you didn't mention his refusal to enforce the TikTok ban. Surely, that's one of the best proofs that he doesn't respect the other branches of government?

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