You've seen time and again how lefty narratives seem to magically spring up like forest mushrooms after a rainstorm — the toxic variety, of course — and a particularly poisonous new narrative might be taking shape in Tuesday's Politico. If you're looking for fertile ground for lefty narratives, Politico is the equivalent of the Amazon rainforest floor.
The new narrative's target: Three of the few serious people in Washington dedicated to doing a serious job. They aren't evil or dangerous or anything like that — they just have the misfortune to be associated with two things the Left can't stand: Donald Trump and the Constitution.
My friend and colleague Stephen Kruiser pointed out Monday that "the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media are screeching in unison around a new panic fiction" that Trump is an "authoritarian" danger to all that is good and decent. The new narrative, wrapped up in that single word, "authoritarian," appeared all over the place over just a few days. We might just be one more set of polls showing Trump beating Biden away from the narrative shifting from merely authoritarian to Ackshully Hitler.
(If the speed with which these new narratives become established in media reminds you of the old JournoList, that's because Ezra Klein's narrative-setting Google Group for progressive journalists never really shut down — it just decentralized and moved to Twitter/X.)
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Now that Trump has been quickly and thoroughly established as an authoritarian, the Left's sights appear to have shifted to "three justices appointed by Donald Trump" who "confront a moment of truth on Tuesday, with a case that not only threatens our tax system but our democracy."
"Muh Democracy™ is at stake in a tax case?" you ask. Of course, gentle reader. As Bruce Ackerman and Congresscritter Ro Khanna (CPUSA-Calif. SSR) breathlessly explain in today's Politico:
In Moore v. United States, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from lawyers for the super-rich who contend that all forms of wealth taxation are unconstitutional. The case involves a narrow provision in the Republicans’ 2017 tax overhaul, requiring payment on certain forms of wealth held abroad. When right-wing groups brought their case before the lower federal courts, they used this provision as a platform for a challenge to the very legitimacy of wealth taxation.
The short version is that the vile 16th Amendment authorizes Congress to levy taxes on income "from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." Wealth ain't income and never has been. But that quaint notion, and the Court's willingness to uphold it, are all that stand between your savings and the Left's need to tax the bejeebus out of literally everything.
That's why Ackerman and Khanna worry that the Court might rule in a way that would "block any future Congress from passing a statute requiring multimillionaires to pay a progressive wealth tax."
UPDATE: Like clockwork, USA Today just published a piece equating progressives not getting their wealth tax in the Supreme Court to Washington "losing" trillions — and raised questions about Samual Alito's impartiality. Word is out on the New Narrative.
Progressives promised a century ago that only the rich would pay the income tax when they were pushing for the 16th Amendment. If a wealth tax is ever established — whether by law or judicial fiat — they'll come after your retirement account just as sure as the IRS eventually came for every paycheck.
Ackerman and Khanna's logic is that if the unelected Supreme Court doesn't rewrite the tax code — a job given to the elected Congress by the Constitution — to suit the Left's needs, then the Supreme Court has destroyed Muh Democracy™. "Logic? We don't need no stinkin' logic."
If it all seems too ridiculous to ever gain any traction, just remember how skilled the Left is at getting their narratives established. That's why we do what we do here at PJ Media.
If you're wondering why the Left is turning against SCOTUS, it has everything to do with Trump's judges moving the Court rightward. The Court that the Left once venerated is suddenly at risk of "betray[ing] fundamental principles of American democracy," according to Ackerman and Khanna.
If you want to know where the narrative will shift next, just remember my handy formula: The Left will attempt to destroy any institution they cannot control, and discredit any institution they can neither control nor destroy.
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