For years leftist journalists have been scaring their audience into believing that a Donald Trump victory in 2024 will bring about the “end of democracy.” So it shouldn’t surprise anybody that a crazed shooter might have acted on that premise.
These anchors, reporters and pundits should be the last ones to criticize any conservative for their “tone” in the coming days.
The following are just some of the most obnoxious cases of journalists (via MRC’s archives) declaring democracy dead, if Team Trump wins.
First up is a montage of MSNBCers (by MRC video editor Bill D’Agostino) being a bunch of democracy doomsayers:
MSNBCers Fearmonger: Trump a “Danger” to Democracy
“Let me ask you, do you think that Donald J. Trump presents a clear and present danger to our Democracy?”
— MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, January 23, 2019.
“This would be the end of America. If this is what we’re gonna be, this won’t be a democracy. That’s a monarchy.”
— MSNBC host Joy Reid during MSNBC’s live coverage of Donald Trump’s RNC acceptance speech, August 27, 2020.
“While there are now some comedic takes online about how much people think about the Roman empire these days, it is dead serious. The notion of an actual Trump-led wannabe empire is the end of democracy. Which sounds like a bad thing, unless, by the way, you’re part of this sort of half-trolling half-serious right-wing online community.”
— Host Ari Melber on MSNBC’s The Beat, December 4, 2023.
“A re-election of Donald Trump could mean the end of democracy, because it instantly no longer becomes a presidency, and it becomes something far, far worse.”
— MSNBC political analyst Kimberly Atkins Stohr on Deadline: White House, February 2, 2022.
“Isn’t it one of the larger questions that the country confronts, or has to confront, is when will America start sleepwalking towards the end of Democracy? I mean, all of us here at this table can recall the summer of 2015 when Donald Trump maligned John McCain, maligned his service, maligned his career. Everybody I know said, “Well that’s it for Trump.” … Well, it wasn’t, and it isn’t up until this moment in time.”
— MSNBC Contributor Mike Barnicle on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, November 4, 2023.
“What he’s [Donald Trump] offering is…you won’t have to deal with contested elections, you won’t have to deal with contests or divisions when it comes to power, you’ll have a strongman leader and I’ll just do what I want. And won’t that be a lot simpler?’...We are naive to think he is tricking people into picking him and then surprise he’s gonna act like a dictator. What he is offering is strongman leadership, the end of politics, the end of elections.”
— MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Inside with Jen Psaki, January 22, 2024.
“I was in the UK visiting friends and family, where a lot of people kept asking me the same two questions: One, can Donald Trump really win again? And two, would it really be the end of American democracy if he does? And my answer to both those questions was yes. He can win again, and a second Trump term will be an existential threat to American democracy — in a way that even his first scandal-ridden controversy-plagued, fascist-like term was not.”
— Host Mehdi Hasan on MSNBC’s The Mehdi Hasan Show, July 23, 2023.
“A historian will say, what was at stake tonight and this week, was the fact — whether we will be a democracy in the future. Whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed. We’re on the edge of a brutal authoritarian system, and it could be a week away.”
— Presidential historian Michael Beschloss on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, November 2, 2022.
“One year from now, it could be over. American democracy could be over, Donald Trump one year from now could win… So a year from now it could all be over. The American experiment, at an end. One year from now!”
— Host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, December 18, 2023.
On ABC: Trump Conviction Is Democracy’s “Ultimate Stress Test”
“In 1774 John Adams said, ‘representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty.’ 250 years later, the heart and lungs of liberty are facing what may be the ultimate stress test. Twelve anonymous jurors rendered their verdict on Thursday, finding Donald Trump guilty on all counts. It’s the third time in the last two years that jurors have rendered verdicts against Trump. Jurors have yet to consider charges against Trump for even more serious crimes: blocking the peaceful transfer of power, concealing classified documents, encouraging the filing of false electors. But for now, the New York jurors have already presented their fellow citizens with a choice: do we want to be represented — to be led for the first time in history by a convicted felon? That answer will come in November.”
— Moderator George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week, June 2, 2024.
Trump Is Testing the “Bedrock Tenets” of “Democracy”
“Until now, no American presidential race has been more defined on what’s happening in courtrooms than what is happening on the campaign trail. Until now.....It’s all too easy to fall into reflective habits — to treat this as a normal campaign where both sides embrace the rule of law, where both sides are dedicated to a debate based on facts and the peaceful transfer of power....Those bedrock tenets of our democracy are being tested in a way we haven’t seen since the Civil War. It’s a test for the candidates, for those of us in the media, and for all of us as citizens.”
— Moderator George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week, April 28, 2024.
CBS Proclaims Trump Guilty Verdict = America Is Reborn
“When the guilty verdicts were read this past week, America in a tangible way rechristened itself as a republic. It was a sobering reminder that every American is precisely equal before the law. I have always admired Thomas Jefferson for wanting no title before his name except mister....Former President Trump’s conviction proves that in the eyes of the law even an ex-president is just another Mister….Out of 46 presidents, only Mr. Trump carries the ignoble albatross of ‘convicted felon.’ It’s a sad phrase, but it also gives reason to rejoice that Jefferson’s republic is new all over again.”
— Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley on CBS Sunday Morning, June 2, 2024.
Going a Bit Far with the Civil War Imagery
“I don’t think there has ever been a more recorded mini-insurrection, than what happened on January 6th, and yet we’re still arguing about what happened....When the Civil War began with the surrender of Fort Sumter in 1861, there was throughout much of the land wild celebration and no inkling of the price to be paid....So could the chest beating at a political rally provide real insight as to what could happen in the event of another Trump defeat?...President Trump’s critics and their legion are fearful of what his victory in the election might mean for the country. And he might do well to consider the consequences of another Trump defeat.”
— Ted Koppel on CBS News Sunday Morning, June 2, 2024.
