Who Is the Bigger Threat to Democracy?

Let us concede from the outset that Trump’s failure to call upon his supporters to cease and desist for hours after they besieged the Capitol on January 6, 2020, was one of the low points in the history of American democracy.

Yet I would argue that over the last 20 years, the left has done far more damage to American democracy by draining the main institutions of representative government of popular trust. When fewer and fewer citizens believe that the checks and balances put into place by the Framers are any longer effective, or that the playing field is level for both sides of the political debate, the unifying power of a common set of rules and procedures is lost.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS is specifically secured in the Bill of Rights. A free press, the Framers believed, would act as a necessary check on government power by exposing the actions of those in power to sunlight, the ultimate disinfectant. Such a press was viewed as crucial for an informed citizenry.

But that only works so long as members of the Fourth Estate view themselves as bound to uncover and expose the truth, not to become actors in its suppression. When President Biden revealed himself to be well down the path of senility in the first presidential debate, members of the mainstream press showed themselves to be not just fools but tools. Until that moment, they saw their task as to dismiss as fake news all evidence of the president’s growing enfeeblement and rapidly declining mental acuity.