Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history at New York University, who specializes in Italian history and the history of authoritarianism. She frequently appears on network television and writes a blog called Lucid. This article was written in 2021 but remains timely. Both Trump and the Republican Party project their intentions on the other side.
She wrote:
“Biden is an authoritarian,” warned Fox News on Sept. 11, responding to President Joe Biden’s announcement that vaccinations or weekly Covid-19 testing would be required for employees of large businesses.
No matter that Fox News has had a similar policy in place for months. Propaganda isn’t about logic, but about evoking emotions. And in 2021 America, the Republican charge that Democrats are out to take away our liberty is just too effective at triggering anger and fear.
That’s why Republicans and their allies are investing massive time and energy in circulating this political fiction. The alleged threat posed by “left-wing authoritarianism,” and by Biden as a dictator in the making, are now central talking points for the GOP and its media, religious, and political allies.
It may be tempting to dismiss such rhetoric. Biden is hardly a man of the left, and he has made the defense of democracy against autocracy a theme of his foreign policy speeches. Yet we need to take this phony argument seriously. It is designed to take polarization to the next level, by peddling the idea that Commies/Radical Lefties are out to destroy free will, spiritual life, and civilization as we know it. It is designed to depict Biden as an existential threat and foster survivalist thinking. And what do you do to survive? Anything necessary.
Unlike Democrats, Republicans have a formidable media machine that dispenses disinformation such as this to hundreds of millions every day. They know that propaganda works through repetition, but for maximum impact different sectors of society should deliver the same message, with small variations that cater to the tastes of their constituencies. That’s what’s happening right now with the “Biden as authoritarian” line.
Fox News hammers home the threat of socialism almost daily, providing a frame for its audience to interpret every Biden action. The president’s public welfare measures, like subsidies to mitigate the pandemic’s economic effects, become socialist handouts. And mask and vaccine mandates, which follow best public health practices, are evidence for millions that Biden is the Adolf Hitler of our times.
Fox also trots out survivors of state socialism in Eastern Europe, like Rebekah Koffler, to warn that political correctness, intolerance of religious feeling, and education in schools about “sex-related garbage” (presumably sexual diversity and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals) portend the development of socialism in America.
Meanwhile, right-wing ideologues like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin provide intellectual cover with books like The Authoritarian Moment and American Marxism, the latter of which debuted at the No.1 slot for non-fiction hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list, selling 400,000 in its first week of release.
Faith leaders who support Donald Trump’s sham “stolen election” claims give their twist on the Biden-as-Duce talking point. Evangelical and nondenominational Christians preach the necessity of a spiritual crusade against a Marxist materialist who has seized power. And GOP politicians like Rep. Madison Cawthorn use a term associated with dictatorship to refer to individuals who were arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol: “political prisoners.”
The message that Biden is an authoritarian could lead to more armed actions à la Jan. 6. This is the solution alluded to in a May open letter by 124 retired military and national security officials. It urged Americans to act to “save the nation” from the danger represented by “a hard left turn toward Socialism and a Marxist form of tyranny” –that being their characterization of Biden’s administration. Shutting down democracy to supposedly save democracy is in the best tradition of authoritarian takeovers and coups.
This talking point will escalate in 2021-2022. The more authoritarian the GOP becomes —criminalizing protest, suppressing voting, LBGTQ+ and reproductive rights, discarding the rule of law, and embracing violence— the more it will have to label Democrats as the freedom-wreckers.
Democrats must address this head-on, exposing the idea that Biden is an authoritarian as a phony talking point in their public declarations. Unified messaging on this point is key. Because the specter of an imminent left-wing takeover will be haunting American politics, threatening our democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Unlike Democrats, Republicans have a formidable media machine that dispenses disinformation such as this to hundreds of millions every day.”
Notwithstanding Republican claims the national media favor Democrats, I take the above statement to be true. So why is this? I think it is because thinking on the right or left pre-disposes groups of people to think alike. The lack of ability to keep the coalition together is evidence that there is really no American Left, as there was when the opposition to the Vietnam war united what some called the “New Left” or as there was during the labor movement’s infancy in the Nineteenth century. Modern America is decidedly right-leaning, with news organizations of the right continually fabricating the myth of a leftist agenda using social issues.
The interesting part of this political equation is the libertarian acceptance of the right, which seeks to control people at a very personal level. The libertarian impulse is for governmental de-regulation of controls on individual freedoms like the right to medical privacy and drug use. This alliance on the right of the religious and the libertarian suggests to me a willingness to lie in political bed with the extreme other. This lies at the heart of the modern Republican power.
“Modern America is decidedly right-leaning,”
Bingo, bango boingo. . . we have a winner. Give that man a Kewpie doll.
Some words are slippery from the mouths of demagogues and fanatic haters. ”Freedom” to the right wing means, “the already entitled get to do whatever they want regardless of who it hurts.” ”Authoritarian” means not letting the already entitled get their way in all matters.”
I’m a regular on Quora and I see propaganda masquerading as questions almost every day that paints Biden as Trump, Democrats as fascists, liberals as MAGARINOs, and NATO as freeloaders, et al.
New York Times headlines do the same thing sometimes like the misleading headline and lead paragraph I recently read that NATO was having trouble recruiting 300,000 troops for its ready action force.
No mention of the FACT that the EU countries (most are members of NATO) combined have almost 2,000,000 troops and spend more than US $250 billion annually on defense. The US share of NATO administrivia expenses as about $700 million with about 100,000, mostly administrative noncombatant troops, stationed in Europe.
Russia spends about US $85 billion annually on its incompetent but dangerous military.
The U.S. military budget is more than ten times that of Russia. The U.S., not Russia, has hundreds and hundreds of military bases around the world. Since 2001, the U.S. has engaged in several “regime change” wars in which millions of men, women, and children have been killed. The U.S. also imposes illegal, immoral economic sanctions on dozens of countries. But, sure, Russia is the country with an “incompetent but dangerous military.”
Democrats need to directly address these lies and misinformation. They must not accept the repeated lies from Fox and other right wing groups. Democrats should insist on setting Biden’s record straight and assertively defend his record. Democrats must learn to be strategic and actively get their message out to try to the groups they need to win: people of color, young people and Latinos. It is ridiculous that any of them should feel they will get a better deal with Trump. Democrats need to actively campaign hard to bring these voters back to Biden. The only way to win is through a collective, inclusive effort. Democrats need all hands on deck, and they need a lot more voters than educated, suburban women.
Researchers Find That Higher Intelligence Is Correlated With Left-Wing Beliefs (msn.com)