Liberals always present themselves as smarter than conservatives. But even their attempts to "own" the conservatives can mangle the facts. On CNN's "NewsNight," 22-year-old MeidasTouch Democrat Adam Mockler compared President Donald Trump to Hamas terrorists because they were both "elected democratically."

Earth to Mockler: Hamas had one election and never allowed another. Trump won an election, then lost an election, and then won another election. America is a vibrant, contentious democracy. Meanwhile, Hamas marked its "peace deal" with Trump by executing people in the streets. Gaza fits all the Left's constant talk of authoritarian demise.

"Public" radio is an ever-swirling cesspool of these wild-eyed authoritarian-conspiracy theories. They're not QAnon — QAnon doesn't have 1,000 stations that were until very recently taxpayer-funded.

Trump has constantly tested the boundaries of executive power, but all the comparisons to mass-murdering dictators just keep getting more ridiculous as democracy continues in America.

NPR's talk show "On Point" had a segment, "What can Americans learn from Stalinism?" Answer: Trump is like Stalin. Roll your eyes as "some" experts float the crazy conspiracy: "Some historians argue that President Trump is using a Stalinist-style playbook to amass power, silence his enemies and suppress science. What Americans should know about notorious Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's style and political tactics."

This show originates at WBUR in Boston. Host Meghna Chakrabarti last came to our attention when she complained in March 2024 that President Joe Biden was "cowardly" for shutting down their emerging "Disinformation Governance Board" to censor American speech. That somehow doesn't have any echoes of authoritarianism.

Now, Chakrabarti proclaimed, "quite a few historians and thinkers out there have wondered out loud whether the United States right now under Trumpism has anything to learn from Stalinism." Carnegie-Mellon professor Wendy Goldman was the expert on how Trump is Stalin, but the host also celebrated historian Timothy Snyder, who wrote "On Tyranny" to warn of Trump in 2017.

They used quotes from Trump warning about the danger of "radical left lunatics" disturbing the 2024 election and Stephen Miller lamenting after Charlie Kirk's assassination that it's time to dismantle leftist "terrorist networks." The Left can take these comments and transform them, so that actions like the National Guard battling violent leftist protesters outside ICE buildings are somehow comparable to murderous Soviet purges.

Then there's "On the Media," a nationally distributed program out of WNYC Radio in New York. On Oct. 10, they titled their program "Authoritarianism, but Make It Look Normal." Host Brooke Gladstone interviewed Pema Levy, a reporter at the hard-left magazine Mother Jones, "to discuss a theory on the two-track justice system in Nazi Germany, and why one justice is warning that the U.S. Supreme Court could recreate it."

Levy's article was titled "The 'Dual State' Theory Was Invented to Describe the Nazis. The Supreme Court Could Take Us There." She was playing off an argument by leftist Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Like many leftists, Levi cited ICE raids as "lawlessness," turning the illegal immigration problem upside down.

This was the same "On the Media" program that demonstrated its affinity for authoritarianism in 2023, when Gladstone celebrated "The Communist Manifesto." It was "stirring," it "scans," it's a "stalwart text." She quoted a Marxist calling this a book a delight for the people, "music for their dreams." Naturally, Gladstone and her guest suggested Stalinism was not real communism at all.

The Left really doesn't adore democracy. It loves power — for the "common good." When democracy puts Republicans in power, they must constantly suggest democracy is grotesquely dying, when all that's dying is their grip on reality.

Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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