The unraveling of the modern lefts political sanity may someday fill libraries, and when it does, one chapter will almost certainly be reserved for the spectacle that plays out daily on ABCs The View.
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According to Western Journal, the latest example arrived Tuesday, when co-host Joy Behar used the programs platform to float a conspiracy theory that President Donald Trumps enforcement of federal immigration law is part of a sinister plan to impose authoritarian rule.
Behar claimed that by simply carrying out existing immigration statutes, Trump is deliberately provoking unrest on the left so he can seize emergency powers and dismantle the constitutional order. I worry about that Trump is looking for this kind of pandemonium to go on, like you just described, so that he could declare martial law or something and also cancel the midterms, she said in a clip posted to X. Watch out for this guy!
Rather than challenge this baseless narrative, co-host Sunny Hostin chose to escalate it. Well, under martial law, you wont have elections, Hostin said, treating a fringe fantasy as if it were a looming inevitability.
Behar, far from reconsidering, pressed ahead with her alarmist speculation. Because hes worried, she continued, suggesting that Trumps supposed fear of electoral consequences is driving a plot to suspend democracy itself.
To her credit, co-host Alyssa Farah-Griffin attempted to inject a modicum of constitutional reality into the discussion. Well, the states do administer the elections in this country, Farah-Griffin interjected, reminding viewers that the president cannot simply snap his fingers and cancel midterms.
Behar, however, appeared uninterested in civics or facts, preferring instead to double down on her narrative of impending dictatorship. He even said, if the Democrats take Congress next time, I will be impeached, she added, which means that he could be convicted and sent to jail. He does not want that to happen.
This claim collapses under even basic scrutiny, as impeachment and conviction in Congress remove a president from office but do not, by themselves, send anyone to prison. The criminal justice system remains a separate process, yet Behars rhetoric blurs these distinctions in a way that stokes fear rather than understanding.
The broader irony is that such hysteria from liberal media figures risks creating the very instability they claim to dread. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are not staging a coup; they are enforcing laws passed by Congress and signed by previous presidents.
What has changed is not the law, but the lefts willingness to obey it. Incendiary anti-Trump and anti-ICE rhetoric from Behar, Hostin, and fellow co-host Whoopi Goldberg has helped convince radical activists that they are morally obligated to resist lawful authority at every turn.
In effect, these activists have adopted a posture reminiscent of antebellum nullifiers who believed they could selectively ignore federal law while remaining part of the Union. That is no exaggeration, for what are sanctuary cities if not open attempts to nullify federal immigration statutes they dislike?
This mindset reflects a dangerous delusion: that states, cities, or activist groups can pick and choose which national laws to follow without consequence. If they persist in that belief and escalate their defiance into violence or widespread disorder, they may indeed force the federal government to respond with extraordinary measures.
Under such circumstances, any discussion of martial law would be a reaction to left-wing lawlessness, not a premeditated plot hatched in the Oval Office. The President will only declare martial law if violent leftists leave him with no other choice, yet shows like The View work tirelessly to invert cause and effect.
By feeding their audience a steady diet of fear, misinformation, and contempt for lawful authority, the hosts of The View have helped drive a segment of the left into a state of perpetual outrage. If their most apocalyptic predictions ever come close to reality, it will not be because Trump enforced the law, but because progressive elites encouraged their followers to treat law and order as optional.
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