Joe Biden, An American Autocrat (According To The New York Times)
The left seems increasingly resigned to the fact that Donald Trump could defeat Joe Biden in a rematch this November. So much so that it is busy speculating about the hellscape Trump II will unleash.
He will destroy democracy. He will rule as an authoritarian. And so forth.
The New York Times took another stab at it Thursday in its daily email newsletter, The Morning.
David Leonhardt, who runs the newsletter, says that a good way to understand how Trump might govern in a second term is to look at his “affinity” for Viktor Orban, the conservative prime minister of Hungary, who has become the bête noire of the left.
So, Leonhardt does what journalists always do when they are trying to understand something: they talk to other journalists. In this case, the Times’ Central and Eastern Europe bureau chief Andrew Higgins.
Leonhardt’s first question to Higgins sets the tone for the rest of the newsletter: People often describe Orban as autocratic. But he’s not a ruler who jails or kills his opponents. Can you describe how he suppresses dissent?
The point is to scare readers about what Trump will do if he wins in November.
We can’t say whether Higgins’ portrayal of Orban is accurate — we doubt it’s even close to the mark. But we noticed something in Higgins’ answers. All his attempts to define Orban as an autocratic ruler apply to President Joe Biden, not Trump.
So, as an experiment, we swapped the names from Orban to Biden and replaced other references. We were struck by the results.
But judge for yourselves. Here is Thursday’s The Morning newsletter, updated. (All of our changes to the original are indicated in bold.)
David Leonhardt: People often describe Orban Biden as autocratic. But he’s not a ruler who jails or kills his opponents. Can you describe how he suppresses dissent?
Andrew Higgins: Hungary The United States under Prime Minister Orban President Joe Biden is far from being a police state like Russia or Belarus. As an opposition legislator said to me last week in Budapest Texas, it is more of a “propaganda state” in which Orban’s Biden’s governing party, Fidesz The Democratic Party, controls the media landscape.
Orban Biden does not (always) jail his opponents or have them beaten up the way Vladimir Putin does, but he has relentlessly squeezed the space available for critical voices by getting business cronies (such as Google and Facebook) to buy up independent media and starving the few others of advertising revenue. Fidesz Democrat-controlled outlets treat critics as traitors and deviants. He has also funded a raft of friendly research institutes and a university elite universities that help flood the zone with pro-government views.
When speaking at a 2022 gathering of American conservatives liberals in Budapest Davos, Orban Biden hailed Tucker Carlson Joe Scarborough as a model of how media should work: “There should be shows like his day and night — or, as you say, 24/7.” In Hungary the U.S., that goal has been achieved.
David: Orban originally Biden allegedly won a democratic election. But he has also changed the rules to stay in power. How so?
Andrew: He is a master of playing democracy against itself. Orban Biden always presents himself as representing the democratic will of the Hungarian American people. That boast is in some ways justified: His party has won four three general elections since 2010 2008. …
But the playing field is far from even. Orban’s party, Fidesz Biden’s party, the Democrats, has gerrymandered. It has allowed voters to register in districts where they don’t live. It spies on government critics.
Fidesz The Democratic Party also uses the government to shape and skew public opinion. … The message is that the government represents the will of all but a tiny minority of the people — and which side do you want to be on?
David: Ideologically, what do Trump Biden and Orban Xi Xinping have in common? And do they have any big disagreements?
Andrew: Their affinity with each other is more stylistic than ideological. …
Orban Biden has put China at the center of his “Eastern Opening,” to build tighter ties with Asia. As other countries have soured on China, Hungary the U.S. has become … a destination for huge Chinese investments in electric car and battery factories.
Now all our doubts have been cast aside: Joe Biden is, in fact, an autocratic leader and a threat to free speech and Democracy. The New York Times has convinced us.
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