Biden convened his Summit for Democracy “to renew democracy at home and confront autocracies abroad”. But in the speeches by Biden and Kamala Harris, neither could think of a single foreign autocrat or enemy they wanted to confront. Instead they bashed America.
While China and Russia waged a concerted propaganda campaign against the summit, they need not have worried. Not only did Biden and Kamala refrain from slighting Putin or Xi, but when the Taiwanese delegate displayed a map in which Taiwan was marked in a different color, her feed was cut off and an apologetic message was displayed disavowing Taiwan’s existence.
“Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States government,” the democracy summit clarified.
The censorship occurred during a session on “countering digital authoritarianism” to helpfully remind everyone that the Biden administration and its Big Tech allies are digital authoritarians.
While the Biden administration went to great pains to avoid offending Communist China, Biden touted his push to unconstitutionally nationalize elections in his opening session remarks while Kamala went even further, claiming that “our democracy is not immune from threats” posed by the GOP and that Republican states have passed “anti-voter laws” as “part of an intentional effort to exclude Americans from participating in our democracy.”
If only Kamala had this much of a backbone when it came to Xi.
Not only was Kamala’s unhinged rant false, but, like Biden, it was a partisan pitch in an international forum. Presidents, or the people playing the part, are not supposed to fight partisan battles in international forums. A national leader is supposed to maintain a united front abroad while confronting foreign adversaries. Biden has dispensed with both the united front and confronting foreign adversaries, undermining the country in two different ways at one summit.
The Biden administration has confronted Chinese and Russian military threats out of both sides of its mouth, talking tough for domestic consumption before promising Xi and Putin that they have nothing to worry about. The Summit for Democracy was Biden’s latest attempt to appear to be doing something while doing nothing. And the thing that he was and wasn’t doing was yet another Zoom call with international diplomats whose one virtue is that it wastes less gas.
Unfortunately that was more than made up for by the amount of hot air from the administration.
The Zoom Democracy Summit wasn’t actually about democracies. The Biden administration didn’t reach out to the leaders of some democracies while inviting brutal thugs like Pakistan’s Khan. Khan, fresh from praising the Taliban takeover, was persuaded by his Chinese allies not to call in. Taiwan, which was allowed to attend, was not allowed to even imply that it was a separate nation from Communist China despite the fact that its independence is democratic.
Taiwan’s leaders are chosen in free elections. China’s leaders are Communist apparatchiks. When a democracy summit censors democracies when they make this point, then what’s it for?
Biden used the Summit for Democracy to pitch his Build Back Better pork sandwich. Foreign leaders and diplomats must have been confused to hear Biden falsely talk up BBB as “an extraordinary investment in our people and our workers” as if he were addressing Ohio Dems.
Confronted with an international forum, Biden and Kamala could think of nothing else than to spout generalities written by their overpaid speechwriters before pivoting to a pitch for their partisan pork along with some of the same old attacks on their Republican political opponents.
There could hardly have been a clearer message to world leaders that the Biden administration doesn’t have a foreign policy, doesn’t want a foreign policy, and couldn’t care less about the world unless there’s a clause ensuring that 10% of the world will be held in trust for the big guy.
The only enemies that Biden and his people can conceive of use an elephant as their symbol and pledge allegiance to the United States, instead of taking a knee at the anthem.
Russia and China weren’t worried before the summit. They’re worried even less now.
While the Biden administration talks tough on them, it’s fighting a Senate Republican push for sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 plan to dominate Europe, lubricated by lobbying efforts aimed at top Dems like Senator Schumer, and on Chinese solar panels made with slave labor, defended by John Kerry as the only thing standing between us and the end of the human race.
In politics, the smart money ignores the rhetoric and follows the money.
Hong Kong wasn’t worth ruining the cozy economic relationship between San Francisco greens and Beijing reds. Taiwan won’t be compelling enough to upset Disney’s plans for Mulan 2 or Hunter Biden’s post-art career. China could gobble up all of Asia and the only response would be another summit at which Biden would warn that Republicans were the true threat to democracy.
The only people the Biden administration has any intention of confronting aren’t in Moscow or Beijing, but in Florida, Texas, and other targets of DOJ lawfare. While Biden mumbles something about the dangers of “authoritarianism”, he treats Americans like the Taiwanese when it comes to pursuing efforts to censor, silence, and deplatform the political opposition.
It’s not just Xi and Putin who are using their control over local tech companies to suppress their political opponents. The Democrats have spent the past five years demanding that Facebook censor anyone to the right of David Brooks. If their wars on “disinformation” and for “information integrity”, aimed narrowly at those they disagree with, aren’t digital authoritarianism, what is?
The differences between Xi, Putin, and Biden are a matter of degree. The Chinese and Russian leaders enjoy a degree of control over their respective empires that Democrats can only envy. If they don’t serve their political enemies radioactive tea or carve them up for their organs, it’s not because they would draw a firm red line at such behavior, but because they lack the ability.
At least for now.
Like China and Russia, America ricochets from one national emergency to another. Democrats insist that defending democracy requires eliminating minor matters like free speech and free elections. That’s a position that China, which also claims to be democratic, understands.
Democrats insist that any institution they don’t control or any obstacle to their absolute power, whether it’s the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, or the Bill of Rights, is “broken” and needs to be fixed by either being thoroughly rigged or eliminated. And, they claim that this is the only way to fight “authoritarianism” which they define as any power source they don’t possess.
The problem wasn’t that Biden invited Pakistan to his virtual democracy summit, it’s that he invited Kamala. No world leader, no matter how terrible, deserves to listen to Kamala touting the virtues of democracy while attacking the existence of any party other than the Democrats.
Kamala Harris was elected to the Senate in a two-way race between two Democrats and then was chosen to be a heartbeat away from the presidency after dropping out of the primaries before facing a single election. The only person who has less experience with democracy than Kamala is Kim Jong-un. That’s the Democrat idea of democracy and their vision for America.
{Reposted from the FrontPageMag website}