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Former President Donald J. Trump has refused to just accept his loss within the 2020 election, painted as martyrs the supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, laid groundwork to disclaim the 2024 election outcomes if he loses, and stated he can be a dictator on his first day again in workplace if he wins.
But based on the impartial presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it’s President Biden who poses the higher risk to American democracy — a view that Mr. Kennedy shares with Mr. Trump himself, and that democracy consultants referred to as “absurd” and “preposterous.”
Such a perspective is feasible as a result of Mr. Kennedy, who has based his political profession on selling vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories in regards to the authorities, sees the Biden administration’s efforts to curtail the unfold of misinformation as a seminal difficulty of our time. Censorship, as he calls it, overpowers all different issues in regards to the political system.
Mr. Kennedy’s stance drew contemporary scrutiny this week after he stated in an interview on CNN, “Listen, I could make the argument that President Biden is a a lot worse risk to democracy, and the rationale for that’s President Biden is the primary candidate in historical past, the primary president in historical past that has used the federal companies to censor political speech, to censor his opponent.” He repeated himself on Fox News on Tuesday, saying {that a} president like Mr. Biden was “a real risk to our democracy.”
The remarks by Mr. Kennedy, who carries the title however not the help of a storied Democratic household, have been an escalation of his assaults on Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party — and he rapidly backtracked, saying in an interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation on Tuesday night time that he had been misunderstood. “What I stated was that I may make this argument. I didn’t say definitively whether or not I believed one or the opposite was extra harmful to democracy. I did say that I don’t consider both of them are going to destroy democracy.”
Mr. Kennedy has lengthy stated that the federal government’s engagement with media corporations and tech platforms — to stop the unfold of disinformation or unlawful supplies or, in Mr. Kennedy’s case, the arguments he and his allies made towards vaccines — quantities to unlawful censorship, an argument that was met with skepticism on the Supreme Court final month.
In the CNN and Fox News interviews, Mr. Kennedy — an environmental lawyer who till final fall was himself a Democrat — educated his outrage instantly on the Democratic Party’s chief, whose allies fear that Mr. Kennedy may tip a detailed election in November to Mr. Trump.
Democratic officers have devoted growing sources to a multipronged effort to undermine Mr. Kennedy’s marketing campaign, fearing that his presence on swing-state ballots may siphon votes from Mr. Biden.
At the identical time, it stays unclear whether or not Mr. Kennedy — whose anti-establishment message has additionally made him standard with some disaffected Republicans, independents and Libertarians — would draw extra votes from Mr. Biden than from Mr. Trump. A current Fox News ballot confirmed him drawing about equally from each candidates, and Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Kennedy final week as a “radical Left” candidate, in a possible signal of nervousness about his candidacy.
In marketing campaign appearances, Mr. Kennedy has usually drawn comparisons between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. Last week, when he introduced his operating mate, Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley lawyer, Mr. Kennedy stated that to younger Americans, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump “appear to be two sides of the identical coin.”
But a number of students who’ve studied democratic governments and the methods they’ll backslide instructed The New York Times that it was nonsensical to counsel that social media moderation — which the Supreme Court appeared inclined to uphold as a professional objective of presidency — posed a higher risk than what Mr. Trump has finished.
They pointed to his refusal to just accept an election loss, his stoking of political violence, and his efforts to consolidate government energy and undermine public confidence in impartial sources of data.
The two most basic tenets of democracy are that politicians “should at all times unambiguously settle for the outcomes of elections and should at all times unambiguously reject political violence,” stated Steven Levitsky, a professor of presidency at Harvard who co-wrote the e-book “How Democracies Die.” “I don’t assume you’ll discover a democracy skilled on the planet who will declare that the gentle efforts to manage social media within the United States are by some means equal or worse than an effort to overturn an election or the encouragement of political violence.”
Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College, stated Mr. Kennedy had not solely downplayed Mr. Trump’s election denial — a risk that’s “basic” and “must be acknowledged as such if democracy goes to work,” she stated — but additionally inflated Mr. Biden’s actions.
“If we had a president who was utilizing federal companies to chase down his opponents, to drawback them politically, to cease them from having the ability to communicate to residents and voters, that may be a significant infringement of democratic norms,” Dr. Berman stated. “That’s not what Biden was doing.”
In the CNN interview, Mr. Kennedy stated Mr. Trump’s try and overturn the 2020 election “clearly” was a risk, however added: “The biggest risk to democracy will not be anyone who questions election returns, however a president of the United States who makes use of the facility of his workplace to drive a social media firm — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — to open a portal and provides entry to that portal to the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the I.R.S., the CISA, the N.I.H., to censor his political critics.”
He then stated he was not making the argument he had simply made, however was merely saying it was an argument he may make.
He additionally didn’t present proof of any “portal” by means of which federal companies can take away posts. Rather, he referred to a lawsuit he filed final yr alleging that, by threatening regulatory motion, the Biden administration had “induced” social media corporations to limit speech — together with anti-vaccine misinformation — in methods the First Amendment would prohibit the federal government from doing instantly.
A federal judge in February granted a preliminary injunction however stayed it till the Supreme Court guidelines in a associated case, Murthy v. Missouri, with which Mr. Kennedy’s case was consolidated. In the meantime, the Supreme Court allowed the federal government, together with the F.B.I., to proceed contact with main social media corporations — and in listening to the case final month, the justices appeared skeptical of the arguments towards the federal government.
A lawyer for the federal government, Brian H. Fletcher, instructed the courtroom that banning the regulation in query would itself prohibit speech, together with public feedback from a press secretary or different officers in search of to discourage posts which can be dangerous to youngsters, antisemitic or Islamophobic. He added that the social media corporations had acted independently of the federal government and infrequently rejected requests to take down postings.
A senior adviser for the Democratic National Committee referred to as Mr. Kennedy’s feedback “MAGA speaking factors” that put to relaxation “any doubts that he’s a spoiler candidate.”
“With a straight face, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated that Joe Biden is an even bigger risk to democracy than Donald Trump as a result of he was barred from pushing conspiracy theories on-line,” the adviser, Mary Beth Cahill, stated. “There isn’t any comparability to summoning a mob to the Capitol and promising to be a dictator on Day 1.”
In the CNN interview, Mr. Kennedy additionally stated falsely that Mr. Biden was “the primary president in historical past to make use of his energy over the Secret Service to disclaim Secret Service safety to one in every of his political opponents for political causes,” referring to the federal government’s refusal to this point to increase safety to Mr. Kennedy.
“Major” presidential candidates are eligible for Secret Service safety however aren’t assured it. Whether to grant safety is as much as the secretary of homeland safety, in session with congressional leaders from each main events, and impartial and third-party candidates are much less probably than Democrats and Republicans to obtain it.
In a fund-raising electronic mail on Tuesday morning, Mr. Kennedy’s marketing campaign reiterated its complaints in regards to the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, describing the party as corrupt and attacking its escalating authorized efforts to problem his poll entry and its refusal to permit a debate between Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Biden.
“The Democrat political machine is pulling out each trick within the e-book to cease our large momentum,” the e-mail stated. “With countless sources, institution Democrats wish to cease a debate between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Biden. They are utilizing an enormous community of shadowy darkish cash teams and harsh attorneys to maintain Kennedy-Shanahan ticket off state ballots and unfold malicious smears.”
Dr. Levitsky and Dr. Berman each famous that it was uncommon, in a democratic nation, for a politician to explicitly reject democratic norms. It is extra frequent for them to attempt to create a cloud of doubt so voters battle to know what’s true.
“Those who have interaction in misinformation about democracy, those that muddy the waters about what’s and isn’t democratic, are complicit within the assault on our democracy,” Dr. Levitsky stated. “The sort of conduct that sustains a democracy hasn’t modified over time.”
