Meet the Dumbest Hot Take Ever

I assume you all know who Max Boot is. He was reliably Republican until Republicans stopped listening to him. Now he is reliably in favor of anyone who will listen to him, which tends to be the left-leaning readers of the Washington Post who’d rather their hatred of the GOP be affirmed than actually hear truths they sometimes don’t like.

Boot has the hot take to end all hot takes.

Max Boot 🇺🇦🇺🇸 @MaxBoot

If the current trends hold up, Republicans are likely to take over at least the House and quite possibly the Senate, too, along with many state offices. This is how democracies die, both at home and abroad.

wapo.stOpinion | The midterms are a referendum on democracy in America and UkraineIf you support democracy at home and abroad, vote for Democrats.

Got that? Voters voting is how democracy dies.

I noted that on Twitter and Boot responded that voting for an election denier means the end of democracy even if a majority of voters do it.

Boot, you will not be surprised, was a 2016 election denier who believed Trump won fraudulently.

Also, he does not really have anything to say about Democrats funding Republicans who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

I’d like to note something here.

The Crisis of the Third Century in the Roman Empire began, in part, because of inflation.

The French Revolution began, in part, because of inflation.

The Russian Revolution began, in part, because of inflation.

The fall of the Weimar Republic began, in part, because of inflation and then, of course, deflation.

History, time and time again, shows us economic turmoil is a destabilizing force for governments.

Max Boot and his ilk are belittling voters for voting for their economic interests and not for democracy as Boot defines it. Voters are swingingly rapidly to the GOP and its supposed election deniers as Boot boot-licks the Democrats and their policies that led the voters to swing. Boot is upset voters won’t listen to him anymore than Republicans will and is beginning to offer the answer I’ve been asking lately. Since the American press and pundit class will never actually blame Democrats for Democrats losing, who will they blame? The voters, obviously.

Suppose the so-called experts and the elite in the opinion press were really concerned with democracy. In that case, they probably should have remembered their history and not championed a party that has caused runaway inflation and massive energy price hikes. And they could have pulled out the stops to help Republicans like Peter Meijer instead of watching Democrats fund the deniers.

Instead of championing a push to battery-powered cars through painful increases in energy prices, they should have championed cheap fossil fuels to bring down inflation and energy costs.

They have not done any of those things because while they are so fixated on the supposed death of democracy, they’re complicit in killing off democracy by backing the party that has caused massive inflation. They are too busy spinning inflation away as a global concern instead of actually grappling with what Biden did.

But the bottom line is more important. We’re going to have an election. The GOP will do quite well. In two years, we will have another election, and the very same jackasses screaming about democracy dying with a GOP takeover will pay no price, bear no penalty, and see no shame from the mainstream media for their hysterics when democracy does not die, life goes on, and the voters vote again.

That, in turn, will foster more cynicism from the voters and, ultimately, undermine our democracy even further. Voters voting isn’t what kills democracy. But, a press no longer free but enslaved to its fears, biases, and a monomaniacal focus on one side’s supposedly righteousness so that it cannot be fair, honest, or accountable is what paves the way for democracy’s death. Democracy requires a free press. We don’t have it because most of the American press chose to pick a side, protect it, and now cannot break free of the progressive bubble.

Don’t believe me?

In Washington, reporters privately talk about Joe Biden’s age and decline. On TV on Friday, he glitched for the world to see. But the press has barely murmured about it publicly even as the glitch was so noticeable that even the interviewer noticed. Donald Trump gingerly walked down a ramp at West Point, which was covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and more.

We do not have a free and fair press, even though there are still good, fair reporters at every network and in every paper who try their level best to be as objective as they possibly can. The editorial decisions and baked-in biases are doing far more to damage our democracy than voters democratically voting.

Erick Erickson @EWErickson

Late Friday, Biden glitched live on TV. It was so noticeable even his interviewer noticed. Then MSNBC's anchor loudly pretended it was nothing. The press ignored the story. When Trump gingerly walked down a ramp, every major news outlet covered it.