One of the most referenced tropes among the Big Lies used by the “resistance”/Democratic Party/mainstream media alliance to de-legitimize Donald Trump’s Presidency was that he was uniquely willing to discard tradition, established practice, and “democratic norms.” The alleged authorities appealed to by such Trump-bashers as the Times and the Atlantic were Harvard political science professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who wrote a pure partisan screed masquerading as scholarship called “How Democracies Die.”Ethics Alarms discussed it and them here, here, here and here (Big Lie #6). In the last I wrote,

The exact conduct being engaged in by the “resistance” and the Democrats is projected on their adversaries, accompanied by the false claim that they are endangering American democracy. In truth, the calculated efforts to de-legitimatize the President, his election, and the Supreme Court by “the resistance”(and in this group we must include unethical academics like Levitsky and Ziblatt) has already harmed our institutions and the viability of democracy, perhaps beyond repair. For these two propagandists to make the absurd argument that it is [Trump] who undermines institutions and his party that “plays dirty” when it is so obvious to any honest and objective observer that it is their party and their political allies who are doing so is as insulting as it is infuriating.

And, of course, the New York Times gives the two a platform for their distortions. Of course.

Well, Biden’s in trouble, so the Times has summoned Levitsky and Ziblatt again to make the same untenable and intellectually dishonest argument. This time it is, if anything, more spectacularly hypocritical and insulting than their earlier efforts. Their latest is headlined, “Democracy’s Assassins Always Have Accomplices”—you know, like Levitsky and Ziblatt?—and illustrated by the drawing of the boot-licking dog above, as the two Harvard professors dutifully try to paint Joe Biden as democracy’s champion…this uniting figure!…

and Donald Trump as an existential threat to liberty who is being blandly supported by those dangerous fascist MAGA Republicans. In advocacy, one should always lead with one’s strongest argument, and the two partisan boot-lickers think this is their most persuasive:

During the first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential primary campaign last month, Donald Trump’s rivals were asked to raise their hands if they would support his candidacy, even if he was “convicted in a court of law.” Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election wasn’t just a potential criminal offense. It also violated the cardinal rule of democracy: Politicians must accept the results of elections, win or lose.

But that seemed to matter little on the debate stage. Vivek Ramaswamy’s hand shot up first, and all the other leading candidates followed suit — some eagerly, some more hesitantly and one after casting furtive glances to his right and his left.

Behavior like this might seem relatively harmless — a small act of political cowardice aimed at avoiding the wrath of the base. But such banal acquiescence is very dangerous. Individual autocrats, even popular demagogues, are never enough to wreck a democracy. Democracy’s assassins always have accomplices among mainstream politicians in the halls of power. The greatest threat to our democracy comes not from demagogues like Mr. Trump or even from extremist followers like those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 but rather from the ordinary politicians, many of them inside the Capitol that day, who protect and enable him.

If Harvard’s government and history faculties had any integrity, they would immediately have a rebuttal op-ed or ten flying to the Times right now. The pieces would virtually write themselves. These two epic hypocrites who have made their names, fame and profit by arguing that “democratic norms” must be respected and never breached by Presidential administrations, view as ominous and damning a conservative Republican who expresses his contempt for the coordinated political prosecution of Donald Trump by two Democratic state prosecutors and a Justice Department Special Counsel. There is no democratic norm more central to American political traditions than the principle that those in power must not seek to eliminate opposition by weaponizing the criminal justice system, yet Levitsky and Ziblatt don’t, can’t, or won’t even acknowledge that an American interpreting what is currently being done to Trump as an unconscionable totalitarian strategy—which I believe it is— could justify refusing to allow it to succeed. Arguably even worse is the pair’s absurd pretense that their party and its elected officials have not repeatedly breached what they call a “cardinal rule of democracy: Politicians must accept the results of elections, win or lose.”

Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Stacey Abrams, the Congressional Black Caucus, Sen. Dick Durbin, and many more Democrats refused to accept the results of the 2000, 2004 and 2016 election among others, but it iss only a crime and a violation of a “cardinal rule” when Republicans do it.

The entire essay shows two progressive academic boot-lickers licking those progressive boots by calling their adversaries boot-lickers ,when licking boots—iron boots, in fact,— is exactly what adversaries are refusing to do.

It also shows what we can expect from the New York Times, and, almost certainly, the rest of the boot-licking mainstream media over the next 14 months.