by Victor Davis Hanson
The Left spent years destroying the norms it now invokes against Trump—and is outraged that Republicans learned the same playbook.
One of the more surreal things about the new Democratic Party is its habit of charging Trump with legal and ethical transgressions that Democrats themselves normalized years ago. The result is a strange sort of projection, in which the Left’s charges often reveal its own prior wrongdoing. And after undermining norms, they now lament the loss of what they destroyed.
Too Cozy an Attorney General? Democratic Senators voted unanimously against Todd Blanche for attorney general, claiming that, as a former Trump attorney, he was too close to the president. Really? Even if true, the model came from the Democrats—and dates back to John F. Kennedy’s appointment of his own brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general and Obama Attorney General Eric Holder’s own boast: “I’m still the president’s wingman, so I’m there with my boy.”
Lawfare Worries? Democrats are angry that Republican state prosecutors might find grounds under state law to indict Anthony Fauci, despite his federal pardons for federal offenses. But again, who popularized that stratagem?
Ask the freelancing left-wing state, county, and municipal prosecutors Fani Willis, Letitia James, and Alvin Bragg. They set the example, even though they had to concoct nonexistent crimes to ensure that, if Jack Smith’s federal charges did not stick, their local ones might.
A Partisan IRS? Democrats claim that Trump has unduly leveraged the IRS. This charge comes from the Left that produced Lois Lerner. She subjected Republican and Tea Party-like groups to special scrutiny, delaying or denying their applications for tax-exempt status during Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.
Remember, an IRS contractor leaked Trump’s tax returns to The New York Times, which in turn made them public during the 2020 election year.
Election Denialism? The Left claims that Trump is doing great damage to the system by questioning the integrity of the 2020 balloting, which had transmogrified from mostly in-person Election Day voting, with identification required in most states, to widespread early and mail-in balloting, without verifiable identification. But who in modern times first popularized the idea of a presidential candidate challenging election results and alleging ballot fraud?
A New York Times-affiliated audit found that, had Al Gore even won his court bid to obtain recounts in the contested counties, the disputed ballots would nonetheless have shown George W. Bush winning Florida. Thus, the Left’s months-long claim that Bush was “selected, not elected” was mere election denialism.
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Obama White House conspired to peddle the fake “Steele dossier,” while James Comey’s FBI sought to destroy Trump. After the election, Democrats from Hillary Clinton to Jimmy Carter labeled Trump an illegitimately elected president.
Would-be Georgia governor Stacey Abrams, who lost the Georgia gubernatorial election by some 50,000 votes, barnstormed the country for more than a year claiming that she was the rightfully elected governor—to Democratic applause. In 2005, Democrats in the House vainly tried to reject George Bush’s victory in Ohio and thereby throw the 2004 election to John Kerry.
A Weaponized FBI? FBI Director Kash Patel has been an object of nonstop liberal scorn, mostly on the grounds that he is too close to Trump and does the White House’s bidding, along with his former subordinate Dan Bongino.
But no one has accused Patel’s FBI of hatching plots against Democratic candidates in the fashion of James Comey’s FBI, which cooked up the bogus “Crossfire Hurricane” and “Oxferd Comma” investigations that crippled the opening years of the first Trump administration.
And we should remember that “8647” Comey leaked, through a third party to The New York Times, the contents of memos documenting his conversations with the president. Under oath, he claimed ignorance or amnesia 245 times before a congressional committee.
His interim successor, Andrew McCabe, stepped down after investigators concluded he had lied on four occasions—and he was never charged.
FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith doctored an email used in a submission to the FISA court and was convicted of a felony.
McCabe was followed by Christopher Wray, whose FBI conducted the raid on the Trump family’s Mar-a-Lago residence—only to find that 102 of the approximately 11,000 documents seized bore classification markings.
No one seemed bothered that at that time Joe Biden had still not disclosed that he had removed classified documents and stored them in unsecured locations for more than 30 years.
Congressional Subpoenas? Democratic Senators grew furious that Anthony Fauci was called to testify before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs about his alleged past lies to Congress and misconduct while serving as the COVID “czar.”
But when Democrats issued subpoenas to former White House officials Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, and the two stonewalled the committee, they were both jailed for four months.
Domestic Spying? Did Obama not obtain the phone records of Associated Press reporters? His administration also went after the email and phone records of Fox reporter James Rosen. And did Biden Special Counsel Jack Smith not secretly obtain the call logs and text messages of members of Congress?
As a general rule, when the Left levels such accusations, they should be seen as efforts to project its own prior sins onto its opponents. And now, after destroying norms, the Left laments their absence.
Photo: US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-INTELLIGENCE Ousted FBI director James Comey listens during a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill June 8, 2017 in Washington, DC. Fired FBI director James Comey took the stand Thursday in a crucial Senate hearing, repeating explosive allegations that President Donald Trump badgered him over the highly sensitive investigation Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the
Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover
Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former
classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a
visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023
Giles O'Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public
Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National
Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley
Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm
in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming
and agrarianism.
He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/13/whos-been-destroying-norms/
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