Victor Davis Hanson
"As a general rule, when the Left levels such accusations, they should be seen as efforts to project its own prior sins onto its opponents. And now, after destroying norms, the Left laments their absence."
"One of the more surreal things about the new Democratic Party is its habit of charging Trump with legal and ethical transgressions that Democrats themselves normalized years ago. The result is a strange sort of projection, in which the Left’s charges often reveal its own prior wrongdoing. And after undermining norms, they now lament the loss of what they destroyed.
"Too Cozy an Attorney General? Democratic Senators voted unanimously against Todd Blanche for attorney general, claiming that, as a former Trump attorney, he was too close to the president. Really? Even if true, the model came from the Democrats—and dates back to John F. Kennedy’s appointment of his own brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general and Obama Attorney General Eric Holder’s own boast: “I’m still the president’s wingman, so I’m there with my boy.”
"Lawfare Worries? Democrats are angry that Republican state prosecutors might find grounds under state law to indict Anthony Fauci, despite his federal pardons for federal offenses. But again, who popularized that stratagem?
"Ask the freelancing left-wing state, county, and municipal prosecutors Fani Willis, Letitia James, and Alvin Bragg. They set the example, even though they had to concoct nonexistent crimes to ensure that, if Jack Smith’s federal charges did not stick, their local ones might.
"A Partisan IRS? Democrats claim that Trump has unduly leveraged the IRS. This charge comes from the Left that produced Lois Lerner. She subjected Republican and Tea Party-like groups to special scrutiny, delaying or denying their applications for tax-exempt status during Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.
"Remember, an IRS contractor leaked Trump’s tax returns to The New York Times, which in turn made them public during the 2020 election year.
"Election Denialism? The Left claims that Trump is doing great damage to the system by questioning the integrity of the 2020 balloting, which had transmogrified from mostly in-person Election Day voting, with identification required in most states, to widespread early and mail-in balloting, without verifiable identification. But who in modern times first popularized the idea of a presidential candidate challenging election results and alleging ballot fraud?
"A New York Times-affiliated audit found that, had Al Gore even won his court bid to obtain recounts in the contested counties, the disputed ballots would nonetheless have shown George W. Bush winning Florida. Thus, the Left’s months-long claim that Bush was “selected, not elected” was mere election denialism." . . .
