President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump accuse one another of anti-democratic actions and paint a picture of doomsday where the other candidate will be the end of the republic. Serious accusations ought to be considered, here are the most serious accusations and findings, against both presidential candidates.
The Biden administration faced an injunction in which a district court banned the administration from meeting with social media companies to pressure the companies to suppress alternative views. The Biden administration was found to have committed these actions by the same court which was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Former President Trump, on the other hand, faces a number of charges. Notably, he faces an indictment accusing him of conspiring to obstruct official proceedings, violating voting rights and defrauding the United States. Additionally, Trump is charged with attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, although no court date has yet occurred or been set.
The Biden administration was accused by Missouri and Louisiana and some social media users that they had violated the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, by coercing social media platforms into censoring selected content.
The courts found that Biden’s administration engaged in multiple instances of pressuring social media companies to moderate and censor posts that challenged the administration on a wide variety of issues — from the Hunter Biden laptop story to the administration’s COVID-19 policy.
Social media platforms relinquished these pressures even when the post did not break the platform’s community guidelines.
“Facebook recognized that a popular video did not qualify for removal under its policies but promised that it was being ‘labeled’ and ‘demoted’ anyway after the officials flagged it,” the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals filing said.
The interference of a federal administration in the activities of social media platforms to de-platform, demote or remove opinions it found reprehensible is largely unprecedented.
The courts found the Biden administration to be in breach of the First Amendment. This led to the injunction that banned multiple executive agencies and bodies from corresponding with social media companies relating to censorship.
“The present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty said in his 155-page opinion.
Rhetoric about an attack on the nation is applied to former President Trump. Trump faces many charges — the most important one for democracy is the election interference indictment. The indictment brings four accusations against the former president concerning an overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.
While these charges have not been decided in court, any one of them could show that former President Trump’s character is anti-democratic. In the indictment, the U.S. charges Trump as having conspired to defraud the nation, impede congressional proceedings and violate the right to vote.
“The Defendant [Trump] also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results,” the indictment reads.
The indictment claims that Trump did in fact know that what he was perpetuating was false and was doing so with disregard for democracy. This would make Trump’s actions a direct attack on a foundational pillar of democracy — the voting process and the presidential election.
The indictment elaborates on the allegation that Trump was lying by going through several instances of this occurring.
“On January 6th the defendant publicly repeated the knowingly false claim that 36,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona,” the indictment reads.
The court proceedings hinge on the intent of Trump’s actions. If the charges are true, then the case could be made that Trump acted in a way intensely hostile to democracy.
The argument over the threat posed by the presidential candidates should either of them become president is one of genuine importance. If one can determine a president to be counter to democracy, then the choice of who to vote for would become obvious.
The question of who is more dangerous, or who is more undemocratic, is up to individual decision.
“We have strong institutions in our country… That are bulwarks against a tyrant,” presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. said in an interview with NewsNation.
