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Since the Harris/Walz team can’t best the dynamic Trump/Vance duo on substance, policy, vision, likeability, or charisma, their floundering campaign and media allies are having to rely entirely on the tactics they know best: shameless projection, the demonization of their Republican opponents, and hysterical fear-mongering. A Tuesday article at the far-Left Salon site managed to serve up examples of all three.

“’Brain flaws’: Understanding MAGA as an epidemic disease,” by Salon senior politics writer Chauncey DeVega, is just as unhinged as the headline suggests. Rightfully worried that the 2024 election will be a repeat of Trump’s 2016 upset victory over Hillary Clinton, DeVega tried to help his readers make sense of the unpredictable political landscape by getting the opinions of “a range of experts.” Since post-COVID Americans view “experts” with a lower degree of trust and confidence than they do used-car salesmen, this may not have been the wisest choice for bringing clarity to people, but Salon readers are only seeking confirmation bias anyway. And these “experts” delivered.

Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, told DeVega it’s a tragedy that such “a large portion of the American electorate has been so propagandized and manipulated.” She’s right about that except that she’s referring to Trump supporters, when in fact that large portion of propagandized and manipulated voters are Democrats.

Similarly, it’s comical when she claims that a Trump victory in November will steer us toward a “criminal autocracy,” when we have just spent four years being steered off a cliff under the Biden crime family. Her assertions that if Trump wins “he will mobilize the government to go after his political enemies” and that “Right-wing media will be a propaganda arm of the government” are jaw-dropping examples of projection. The Democrats, whose bootlicking media allies could fairly be called the “state media,” have spent the last eight years weaponizing the Deep State and government agencies to target their political enemies, most obviously Trump.

Stewart’s conclusion that under Trump “we’ll see significant economic damage for the middle class, further losses of rights for women, further degradation of voting rights and a dramatic loss of respect for the U.S. on the international stage” will actually be what happens under a Harris/Walz regime; under Trump we will see exactly the opposite.

The next “expert” is Dr. Gary Slutkin, a “distinguished epidemiologist” formerly with the World Health Organization (WHO), which has been exposed since the pandemic as a politically weaponized globalist institution full of liars and incompetents. Slutkin warns that the Make America Great Again movement is “an epidemic disease, infecting many through what I call ‘brain flaws.’” MAGA, he claims, “is a dangerous and lethal syndrome of what I describe as ‘Authoritarian Violence Disorder.’ Donald Trump is a massive superspreader. The contagion and the moral disengagement it causes provokes cruelty and obedience.”

That’s an odd statement, because the political violence we have seen ever since Trump came on the scene has been almost without exception Left-wing. Antifa, anyone? Black Lives Matter? Are those ringing a bell? And as for “moral disengagement that provokes cruelty and obedience,” is the distinguished Dr. Slutkin utterly unaware of the ruthless conformism of Cancel Culture, which is an entirely Left-wing phenomenon?

Slutkin goes on to fear-monger that under Trump we will see “chaos in all aspects of life.” Um, what have we been seeing under four years of Joe Biden? That’s right, chaos in all aspects of life. Any chaos we will see under Trump will stem from the violent resistance of Left-wing agitators who will not accept a Trump election victory or allow the peaceful transfer of power. Slutkin also frets that we will see “other violence including mass deportations and promised detention or concentration camps.”

First of all, mass deportations are not “violence”; they will bring some restoration of order to a country that is witnessing spikes in violent crime thanks to the millions of illegal aliens welcomed by the open-border enthusiasts of the Biden administration, as well as an influx of violent gangs of illegals like the barbaric Tren de Aragua organization from Venezuela. But to Leftists like Slutkin, law enforcement and border laws are criminal.

Second, under Trump there may be detention centers to process the countless felons who are here illegally, but there will be no concentration camps, for God’s sake; this is the kind of ludicrous hysteria promoted by propagandists like Chauncey DeVega and Salon that cause Democrats to see Trump as Hitler 2.0, and MAGA supporters as Nazis. This is the kind of panic-mongering the Democrat leadership and media engage in that prompts assassination attempts on Trump’s life, which they then blame on Trump’s rhetoric.

DeVega’s final two “experts” are Jason Van Tatenhove, a former national media director for the Oath Keepers, and Matthew Sheffield, a “former right-wing activist” who both express hope for our “democracy” under a Kamala presidency (yes, it’s actually a republic but Democrats don’t like the power restraints of a republic). Both men also warn that “Trump has made it clear he won’t accept the results” of the election, which again is pure projection. I predict that when Trump wins, the Democrats will stand united in their full-throated denial of the results and will do whatever it takes to prevent Trump from moving back into the White House.

Kamala’s campaign is collapsing for a variety of reasons, and it’s only going to get worse for her. The Democrats have nothing left but to ramp up the projection, demonization, and fear-mongering against their opponents. That won’t win Kamala the White House, but it does mean America is headed for unprecedented levels of desperate rhetoric and violence against MAGA supporters and Trump and Vance themselves – up to, during, and after the election. Brace yourselves.

Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior