Can Trump apply his ‘no puppet’ tactics to a debate over democracy?

Donald Trump’s rhetoric is often delusional, but the former president generally seems to understand the kind of criticisms he faces. The Republican rejects the disparagements, of course, but he realizes that they exist.

We know this, of course, because Trump invariably takes the criticisms and applies them to his political foes. The Associated Press reported over the weekend on a classic example of the phenomenon.

“Biden’s conduct on our border is by any definition a conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America,” the Republican said at an event in North Carolina. “Biden and his accomplices want to collapse the American system, nullify the will of the actual American voters and establish a new base of power that gives them control for generations.”

Obviously, the rhetoric was bonkers, but it stood out as notable for a couple of reasons.

The first is the bizarre rationale behind the rhetoric, which much of the right has embraced. As the argument goes, the incumbent Democratic president wants an influx of migrants as part of an elaborate scheme that involves registering the new arrivals to vote, all in the hopes of tipping the electoral scales.

In reality, Biden has taken steps to discourage new migrants — he also endorsed a bipartisan package of conservative border reforms that Trump ultimately helped kill — and the idea that a new arrival can simply be handed a voter-registration form is insane. To register to vote, one must be an American citizen, and the process migrants must go through before even trying to become citizens is difficult and takes many years.

But stepping back, Trump wasn’t simply trying to deceive, he also was trying to confuse. The ridiculous rhetoric, a Washington Post report noted, reflected a GOP candidate “seeking to turn the tables on Biden when it comes to anti-democracy attacks.”

As regular readers know, the former president, with little subtlety, has touted an authoritarian-style vision for the United States — up to and including his stated intentions to create a “Day One” dictatorship after taking office.

Under the Republican’s preferred approach, he would also seize control of government departments and agencies that have historically operated with independence, enact radical anti-immigration plans, use government powers to crack down on journalists, and hire right-wing lawyers who will be positioned to help Trump politicize federal law enforcement and exact revenge against his perceived political foes.

He’s also been quite candid about issuing pardons to politically allied criminals and labeling his opponents “vermin,” seemingly indifferent to the word’s 1930s-era antecedents.

All of this, of course, comes against a backdrop of his own record, which includes trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, deploying a mob of radicalized followers to attack his own country’s Capitol, and trying to claim illegitimate power despite the will of the American electorate.

Naturally, this has led Trump to accuse Biden of conspiring to “overthrow” the country and “nullify the will” of the voters.

One of the reasons he peddles absurd rhetoric like this is to muddy the political waters. The Republican wants to create conditions in which average voters — who might not keep up on day-to-day developments in the news — grow lost in a cacophony of accusations. One party says Politician X is attacking democracy; the other party says Politician Y is attacking democracy; and many are left to assume that the truth is somewhere in between.

Except, it’s not. Trump’s critics are telling the truth about his authoritarian-style vision, while the former president himself is simply accusing his opponents of doing what he’s doing.

In fact, that’s what he always does.

The I’m-rubber-you’re-glue approach is Trump’s go-to rhetorical tactic. Revisiting our earlier coverage, when Hillary Clinton accused him of being a “puppet” for Vladimir Putin, for example, Trump said she was the actual puppet (“No puppet, no puppet,” he said. “You’re the puppet.”) When Democrats accused him of obstructing justice, Trump said they were obstructing justice. Accused of executing a quid pro quo with Ukraine, Trump said it was his partisan foes who executed a quid pro quo with Ukraine.

Accused of racism, Trump said his critics are racist. When then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said he had a “meltdown” during behind-the-scenes negotiations, Trump said Pelosi had a “meltdown.” Confronted with allegations that his political operation cooperated with Russian operatives, Trump said Democrats colluded with Russia. Told that the Kremlin supported his candidacy, Trump responded by saying Russia supported Democrats.

More recently, after Trump tried to get the Justice Department to go after his political foes, he falsely accused Biden of trying to get the Justice Department to go after his political foes. When prosecutors accused the former president of committing crimes, he accused them of committing crimes.

In May 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz — at the time, Trump’s rival for his party’s nomination — said the future president “is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. ... Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing.”

Eight years later, the quote remains highly relevant.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.