It does not take an astute observer to see how elites in the media, Hollywood, the federal bureaucracy, academia, international institutions, foreign policy establishment and Silicon Valley are united in their opposition to President Donald Trump. His brazenly offensive persona and unabashed assault on the status quo have created mass uncertainty during a pandemic. Even from a conservative point of view, it is understandable that this intersectional rancor, a trans-partisan alliance of sorts, would challenge Trump.
But Trump is just one man, and in their frenzy to remove him from office, these interests are jettisoning their principles for what they believe is the greater good. Embracing an ends-justify-the-means mentality to defeat the always-Machiavellian Trump may yield a favorable result next week at the ballot box. But the long-term ramifications could be more harmful to liberal democracy than anything the president could accomplish.
In the past few weeks, Big Tech entities have censored a salacious story about the contents of Hunter Biden‘s laptop because they believe it hurts his father’s chances to win the presidency. Facebook communications director Andy Stone said his platform would censor the article regardless of its truthfulness. Even though the former vice president and his troubled son have not denied the legitimacy of the laptop contents released by the New York Post and other outlets, prestigious journalists have done the work of the Biden campaign, speculating without evidence that it was a Russian disinformation operation.
Some maverick left-wing journalists, such as Matt Taibbi, Michael Tracey and Glenn Greenwald, have posited that the media response to the Biden leaks is the real scandal. While Hunter’s suspect foreign deals and his father’s potential knowledge of those acts are certainly newsworthy, they are probably not much of a game-changer for the race. Tech companies’ response reveals a more insidious threat to our democracy. It shows the rise of a political elite who are happy to control information and act as a de facto truth commission for the public for whom they harbor a growing contempt.
One particularly troubling statement reveals the extent of the decline of the Fourth Estate. In a Washington Post op-ed, professor Thomas Rid wrote, “We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation—even if they probably aren’t.
How often does the left whine and cry about “Constitutional crisis” being created somehow by Trump. Here, as in other cases, the Democrats plot to create their own if the election, replete with their fraud and cheating, does not turn out like they want.