Nearly every statement from the president, and other Democrat leaders as well, is now being touted as a "defense of democracy."  "Democracy," in fact, has become the left's favorite word for defending its violent assault on our democracy.  Whenever progressives use the word, rest assured that they're interested in their own power, not in your freedom.

Biden's Memorial Day speech is a good example.  In what the Washington Post called "a rousing defense of democracy," Biden launched a familiar attack on those who are actually protecting our democracy.  In fact, Biden's "Memorial" Day speech said nothing of substance about those who have fought and died for our democracy.  It was as empty of true Memorial Day spirit as Kamala Harris's obscene "Enjoy the long weekend" tweet.

Calling democracy "the soul of America," Biden then referred to "the infrastructure of democracy," an odd phrase that he tied to opposition to election reform in Georgia, Texas, Florida, and other states.  Biden seems to think the infrastructure of democracy — whatever that is — requires us to extend voting rights to illegals, felons, out-of-state voters, the dead, and even those who don't exist.

Now Biden has put Kamala Harris, of all people, in charge of "protecting" voting rights.  Biden has called the Texas voting rights bill, which helps assure a fair count of the vote, "a concerted attack on our democracy."  It seems Biden considers every attempt to protect against voter fraud, and everything else conservatives believe in, an attack on democracy, and now he's put "no show" Harris in charge of another major job.  

The "infrastructure of democracy," Biden said, also includes a free press that "pursues the truth," and that, presumably, suppresses opinions that do not conform to "the truth" as progressives see it.  For now, Biden's got just the kind of unfree press he wants.  Google "Kamala Harris in charge of protecting voting rights," as I've just done, and you'll get pages of fawning praise of Harris as the right person to take on "another difficult role."  Not a word questioning her work on the previous "difficult role" of defending the border.  It would be difficult to unearth any criticism of Harris in search results. 

Biden also linked democracy to the idea that the law must "apply equally and fairly to every citizen."  It's hard to disagree with such a platitude, except that for Biden, "equally and fairly" seems to mean just the opposite of what it says.  Is it equal and fair to load a $1.9-trillion relief bill with billions in assistance specifically excluding whites?  Is it equal and fair to pay off mortgage loans only for black and Hispanic farmers while specifically excluding whites?  As if excluding qualified whites under affirmative action weren't enough, Biden is going farther, handing out race-based bonanzas to millions of blacks and Hispanics.  Does he think this is "equal and fair"?  And he follows this up with another reference to "systemic racism" and the supposed unequal treatment of blacks by the police.

Biden's democracy "infrastructure" amounts to a defense of election fraud, press and media censorship, and false claims of widespread police bias.  Thoughtful readers understand that those claims are not a defense of democracy — they are an assertion of autocracy, the supposed "right" of progressives to rig elections, censor the opposition, and defund the police.

As the Post pointed out, Biden used the same rhetoric to promote $4 trillion in infrastructure spending, "saying that Western democracies must show the world that they can make big investments and overcome gridlock."  This is like saying that if you don't agree with ruinous borrowing and ruinous tax increases, you don't believe in democracy — and what's more, you're part of "gridlock," a word recycled from the Obama administration's constant attempt to silence opponents by calling them "obstructionists."

It might seem that Biden's use of "democracy" in defense of undemocratic initiatives is just politics as usual.  Politicians have always lied, and opposing real election reform in the name of democracy is just another example.  Except that it is not: it is an escalation of political deceit.

There is something particularly brazen and dirty about invoking "the soul of democracy" in defense of back-room election-rigging or press censorship.  It is brazen and ugly, and it is reminiscent of past regimes that were equally ruthless in their use of the Big Lie.

The große Lüge or Big Lie is the name of a familiar propaganda technique coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf.  Hitler understood, as has every dictator since, that Big Lies are more effective than small ones.  Who would challenge Hitler's assertion that Dachau, created just two months after he took office as chancellor, was not a death camp, but a re-education center operated for the benefit of its residents?  The claim that death camps were nothing but health clubs is so brazen that it's hard to fathom.  Likewise for the claim that allowing voter fraud is the soul of democracy.

The Big Lie is a staple of dictators who despise democracy.  Who, at the time, imagined that Stalin's Moscow show trials of 1936–38 would send between 950,000 and 1.2 million persons to their deaths with nothing resembling a fair trial?  Stalin claimed that he was defending the state against criminals who received a fair trial, and Western liberals like Jean-Paul Sartre believed the Big Lie.  The reality was that Stalin was cleansing the Soviet Union of potential rivals and political opponents.

It's not necessary to look just to murderous tyrants to find the Big Lie.  Obama was a Big Liar as well, often combining a glib use of language with an exaggerated or imprecise claim intended to confuse opponents.  "We are the ones we've been waiting for" — huh?  "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."  Really?  Including those from whom it is "spread"?  "In the end, that's what this election is all about.  Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?"  So everyone who votes against Obama is "cynical," everyone who votes for him is for "hope"?  "We want everybody to act like adults, quit playing games, realize that it's not just my way or the highway" — this at a time when it was "my way or the highway" as far as Democrats were concerned.

These were all Big Lies, and now we're back to Big Lies again.  Biden's claim that everyone who disagrees with him is an enemy of democracy is not too subtle, but Big Lies don't have to be.  Repeat it often enough, and people will believe you.  Progressives tell us that election fraud is "democratic," open borders are really "closed" when they're wide open, there is no crime wave when there is, and it's equal and fair to exclude whites from opportunities and fair treatment.

Those are all lies, but anyone who points that out is "attacking democracy."  Make no mistake: this isn't just another example of Biden's fuzzy use of language — this is a ruthless attack on opponents.

Let's be clear: election fraud is not democratic, nor are open borders, affirmative action, and mob violence.  What Biden is defending is not democracy — it is the rule of a small political elite employing tactics of racial division and special interests.  It's critical for the American people to see just what he means by "democracy," and how far it is from the democracy we love.  

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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