During her remarks Saturday evening to a fundraising dinner for the Los Angeles chapter of the Human Rights Campaign, First Lady Jill Biden compared school parents' concerns over explicit reading material in elementary schools to the rise of the Nazis in Germany.
Human Rights Campaign is the largest homosexual advocacy organization in America.
Columnist Robert Knight says, "If you want someday to destroy a political opponent in order to 'save democracy,' you might want to take notes from the Democrats. They love to throw the term 'democracy' around – even as they act in profoundly undemocratic ways."
He calls it a "demonic version of democracy."
Be informed, not misled.
Two versions of "democracy."
Biden first discussed the $1.2-trillion spending package signed by her husband, President Joe Biden, earlier in the day. She told her audience that Democrats "had to fend off more than 50 anti-gay amendments that Republicans tried to force" into the bill.
She then explained her picture of how democracies crumble and the roles played by school parents and others.
"History teaches us that democracies don't disappear overnight. They disappear slowly, subtly, silently – a book ban, a court decision, a 'don't say gay' law. Before World War II, I'm told, Berlin was the center of LGBTQ culture in Europe. One group of people loses their rights … and then another and another until one morning you wake up, and you no longer live in a democracy," she explained.
Robert Knight sees things very differently.
He notes that "In the name of 'saving democracy,' a former presidential aide is now behind bars in a federal prison in Miami."
Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months for ignoring a congressional subpoena ordering him to appear before the House Jan. 6 Select Committee.
That's the kangaroo court that permitted no pro-Trump witnesses, no pro-Trump committee members, and staged a Stalinist-style show trial that outranks the most disgraceful congressional abuses of power ever seen.
Mr. Navarro continues to argue, rightly, that he is protected by "executive privilege," without which no aide could ever speak candidly to a president for fear of this kind of prosecution.
It's why he is the first presidential aide to be jailed for contempt in the entire history of the nation since George Washington was sworn in as president on April 30, 1789.
Knight says, "Even the manner of Mr. Navarro's arrest smacks of police state tactics. He was at Reagan National Airport on June 4, 2022, about to board a flight to Nashville to appear on Mike Huckabee's TV show, when FBI agents handcuffed him and took him into custody."
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, questioned the nature of the event.
"It is curious...at a minimum why the government treated Mr. Navarro's arrest in the way it did," he said at a pretrial hearing. "It is a federal crime, but it is not a violent crime. It is a surprise to me that self-surrender was not offered."
Well, it's not really a mystery.
If they had just let him walk into an FBI office, as Mr. Navarro has said he had offered to do, it wouldn't send the message that the politicized FBI wanted: Buck our idea of "democracy" at your own peril.
Who decides the meaning of "democracy?"
Concerns and efforts to remove books were well underway in 2022 when a majority of those banned dealt with gender and LGBTQ themes. Other themes included sexual content, race, and racism.
Dr. Dave Brat, dean of Liberty University's School of Business, discussed Mrs. Biden's remarks on Washington Watch Monday. The irony here, he said, is the "importance of the Judeo-Christian tradition to all the values that liberals used to like."
"In case [the liberals] missed the memo, the Protestants founded Harvard, Yale, Princeton. All the publics trained and all believed in modern democracy. The Republic, the Constitution, the rule of law and the Judeo-Christian tradition uniquely came up with the entire human rights apparatus and language of the Modern Period after the Enlightenment. So, the confusion is, what exact rights are we talking about?" Brat wondered.
"The Constitution was set up to protect minority rights, but the rights back then were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The question these days is whose rights get to trump other rights," he stated.
Brat said the Christians who founded those universities stepped back, but the Left shows no willingness to include other ideas.
"They want to impose their will. They expect Christians to give up their rights. This is the Modern Period."
In the 1930s, Nazi-dominated student groups burned books they declared to be "un-German." This was documented to have occurred in 34 university towns and cities. Words of prominent Jewish, liberal, and leftist writers ended up on bonfires, according to The U.S. Holocaust Museum.
"The book burnings stood as a powerful symbol of Nazi intolerance and censorship," the museum writes.
Left-leaning politicians in the U.S. and leadership on college campuses have been some of the strongest voices of antisemitism since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Rep. Rashida Talib (R-Michigan) was censured by her House colleagues last November over her remarks regarding the Israel-Hamas war. The resolution censures Talib for "promoting false narratives regarding the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel."
Brat argues that if Jill Biden wants to see examples of Nazi behavior, she should consider these and not the school parents who oppose gender narratives being taught to impressionable children who have not expressed confusion.
Brat predicted, "Things are inverted [and] this election cycle is going to see a huge, probably populist move versus the globalist – not your old standard Republican versus Democrat."
Takeaway
In Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1959), C.S. Lewis's devilish mentor, Screwtape, instructs demons on how to use the word "democracy" in diabolical ways.
"Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose. …They should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning," Screwtape says. "You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It's a name they venerate."
Knight says, "Indeed, the upholders of 'democracy' are deploying undemocratic lawfare never before seen in this country. They are jailing the opposing party's former executive officials and raiding homes of peaceful pro-life protesters."
These are the ways of demonic democracy.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.