Wannabe dictator – new label for Joe Biden

This week the (nominal) President got a new label: wannabe dictator. It first appeared on the day of Donald Trump’s arraignment on classified-documents mishandling charges. More recently, commentator Tucker Carlson took up the refrain – and gave examples of its seeming applicability.

The wannabe dictator label

The label wannabe dictator first appeared on a chyron, or under-the-frame caption, on Fox News Tonight on June 13. According to BizPacReview, the program (a replacement for Tucker Carlson’s program that originally ran at that hour) featured two side-by-side speeches. On the left one could see Joe Biden speaking to a Juneteenth concern on the White House Lawn. On the right, Trump appeared, addressing well-wishers at his Bedminster Country Club in New Jersey. Beneath this double frame ran this caption: WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.

Two Twitter threads picked up on the slogan. Alex Thompson at Axios left this one:

From The Recount came this thread, with embedded video of the split-screen segment:

The next day, The Recount left this video, apparently showing Fox News cutting away from a statement White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made:

Independent Journal Review carried this article in which Jean-Pierre said she had “seven hundred eighty-seven million things I could say.” That could refer to Fox’ $787 million settlement payment to Dominion Voting Services.

Earlier, IJR carried a scathing commentary on the chyron, emphasizing Biden’s “due election” as President. But in the middle of saying “Trump could have avoided” his indictment, IJR also admitted three “dictatorial” acts by Biden. They included:

• An eviction moratorium in 2021,
• An “overreaching” interpretation of the HEROES Act to justify forgiving student loans, and
• The September Pre-Midterm Speech.

Tucker Carlson speaks to it

To this day, Fox News has not disclosed the identity of the producer who put up the remarkable chyron. Other producers took it down after twenty-seven seconds. The next day – as Tucker Carlson stated last night – that producer received a peremptory order to clean out his desk and leave the building at once, never to return. According to Carlson, he had been with the network for ten years.

In his fourth episode – still defying a cease-and-desist letter – Carlson did not address the motives of that producer. Instead he sardonically cited many examples of behavior indicating that the wannabe dictator label might fit.

The very spectacle of bringing an opponent up on spurious charges, led Carlson’s list. He then cited calls by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman USA (retired) and Actor John Cusack for shutting Fox News down. After that, he cited:

• Biden and his family getting rich while people live in slums and even tents on city streets,
• Continued arrests arising out of the January 6 event (and the shooting of Ashli Babbett),
• Censorship of opinions by social media acting as State actors,
• The continued push for gun control,
• Tracking of citizens’ cell phone positions and conversations in violation of the Fourth Amendment,
• Stockpiling of “opposition research” information – and ammunition for IRS agents and other bureaucrats,
• Forcing credit-card issuers to turn over confidential purchase information,
• A fawning press that refuses to acknowledge Biden’s increasing physical and cognitive infirmities, and
• The Speech, with its blood-red background and the Marine guards.

Whose kids?

Arguably the worst example Carlson cited was the one he cited in closing. This was Biden’s statement that the nation’s children were “our children” during a Pride celebration at the White House. Compared to that, his hanging of a Pride flag front-and-center from the White House colonnade, in violation of the U.S. Flag Code, was a distinctly minor matter. Carlson did not even see fit to mention it.

UPDATE: On the morning of June 16, President Trump himself recorded a brief video seconding Tucker Carlson’s message.

FURTHER UPDATE: We now know the name of that producer, courtesy of ABC News. His name is Alex McCaskill. ABC said he owned up to it on Instagram. Justin Baragola confirmed this on Twitter:

Again according to ABC, this same Alex McCaskill figured in the Abby Grossberg lawsuit against Fox and Tucker Carlson.

One more thing for the wannabe dictator

Does anyone hazard a guess as to whether and how Joe Biden will honor those who fell in Operation Overlord, on its eightieth anniversary next year?