Attacking Trump for Biden’s Sins

By Abe Greenwald

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

 

So much about Donald Trump’s second presidency is unique, and yet most of the attacks on him seem terribly familiar. This is because so many of the criticisms are merely liberal echoes of right-wing complaints about the Biden administration. Given all that Trump has been up to, it’s telling that Democrats don’t have the imagination to hit him with much that can’t boomerang back on them. 

 

For the past few days, we’ve seen big, scary headlines reading “Constitutional Crisis” atop stories suggesting the Trump administration was violating or is somehow poised to violate the ruling of a federal judge in Rhode Island. The New York Times’ Ezra Klein captures the representative panic: “If they began simply saying the court system’s authority is illegitimate, that would throw American politics into a genuine constitutional crisis.” Set aside that Trump yesterday said he would comply with the judge’s decision while he seeks to appeal it. The legitimacy of the court-system’s authority is now being championed…by Democrats and liberals? 

 

Since when? During the Biden years, the Democrats’ case against the legitimacy of the judicial branch was comprehensive. In June 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Elizabeth Warren said of the Court, “They have burned whatever legitimacy they may still have had. They just took the last of it and set a torch to it.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chanted that the Court was “illegitimate” along with an army of protesters. Jamie Harrison, then chair of the DNC, wrote, “It isn’t up to you, this illegitimate court, or a bunch of state elected officials to decide what happens to a woman’s body… that choice belongs to a woman and no one else! Period!!!” Then, the entire liberal body politic decided that the Court was ruined in any case because Justice Clarence Thomas likes to vacation with a wealthy friend. In 2024, Biden, who said the Court was “mired in a crisis of ethics,” led the Democrats in a full assault on the Court that would have restructured it, imposed term limits on justices, and made it accountable to outside parties. They failed.

 

And, yes, conservatives noticed. So they “pounced” on Democrats who decided that the judiciary was illegitimate when it made decisions that Democrats didn’t like. Now Democrats and liberals are pouncing on Trump’s nonexistent disregard for a judge’s opinion. 

 

Moving on. “An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer recently. This attack on Elon Musk and DOGE can be heard throughout liberal precincts, and it’s an echo of two right-wing complaints from recent history: that there’s a “deep state” conspiracy in place to block right-wing policy and that unelected government figures, such as Anthony Fauci, have far too much power over our lives.

 

Speaking of Fauci, it’s quite rich to listen to liberal outrage over Trump’s pardoning of the January 6 rioters and others (even if some of the pardons are outrageous). Joe Biden was a pardoning pioneer. He took the practice to a whole new level, sprinkling out pardons preemptively (including one for Fauci), broadly, and as Christmas gifts for the whole Biden family. He also commuted the sentence of a cop killer. Conservatives were angry about it and said so. 

 

It's not whether these criticisms are valid in some instances or even altogether. It’s that they’re rendered mostly hollow. If you attack something you’re willing to do when it’s your turn, the cogency of the original complaint is nullified. As far as the public is concerned, these attacks are cancelled out. Of course, the legacy media gives a boost to liberal complaints that are more or less equivalent to conservative ones. But that’s no longer a benefit to liberals and may in fact be a problem for them.

 

It’s the arguments outside the tit-for-tat offences where Americans look to discern merit in governance. It’s policy that matters. And its policy that Democrats can’t defend. They’ve lost the country on social issues, immigration issues, foreign-policy issues, and economic issues—and they’re not changing their tune. So they fight Trump over sins they’ve already committed and with charges that have already been levelled at them. They’ll soon be saying he’s senile.