Leftist Columnist Compares GOP Blocking Election Takeover to China Shutting Down Pro-Democracy Paper
The left loves to say that American democracy is under attack as long as the Republican Party has any semblance of power.
So when people across the world are fighting for freedom in their own region, it is no surprise when leftists make inapporiate and downright ridiculous comparisons.
Trudy Rubin’s Thursday Op-Ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer perfectly exemplifies the left’s love for hyperbole, this time throwing Hong Kong under the bus.
“As Senate Republicans were blocking a bill to expand voting rights for Americans, the Chinese government was destroying Apple Daily, the pro-democracy tabloid that campaigned for greater voting rights in Hong Kong,” Rubin wrote.
“The comparison is worth making, because of the way China has systematically shredded Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms over the last year. Under cover of a new national security law, and COVID-19, Beijing has diminished voting rights, while arresting pro-democracy activists and muzzling the media,” she continued.
Apple Daily was shut down by the Chinese government last week, cutting off one of the few vessels of information that is not Chinese propaganda to Hong Kong citizens.
?? “These 9 years will definitely be the brightest moment in my life.“
We followed Apple Daily photojournalist KT days before Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy newspaper was shut by China. He tells us about his 9 years at the paper https://t.co/GZlQOLxQ3w #香港 pic.twitter.com/poxGauf2dw
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) June 28, 2021
Journalists for the Apple Daily are now being targeted by state police, as evidenced by the arrest of an editorial writer at the Hong Kong International Airport on Sunday.
That reporter now faces time up to life in prison for “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign sources to endanger national security,” according to a police statement obtained by NBC News.
The Chinese Communist Party has these journalists who sought to expose the totalitarian nature of the regime fearing for their lives.
Clearly, the situation is not even close to congressional Republican lawmakers blocking House Resolution 1.
The “For The People Act” was Democratic-backed legislation that passed that House in March, but was stopped from advancing to a vote in the Senate on June 22 using the filibuster.
This prompted many Democrats, with the notable exception of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, to support scrapping the filibuster.
Manchin, who is often subjected to toeing the party line despite his more moderate stances, acknowledged that election reforms should be bipartisan in order to truly honor the democratic process.
“Of course, some in my party have argued that now is the time to discard such bipartisan voting reforms and embrace election reforms and policies solely supported by one party. Respectfully, I do not agree,” the senator wrote in an Op-Ed for the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
“I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.”
Even though Rubin might be frustrated with the fact that the “For The People Act” died in the Senate, comparing it to a hostile communist regime attacking a publication that supports voting rights is flawed at best.
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