President Joe Biden launched his reelection campaign with the bizarre notion that he and the Democrats are the guardians of freedom and democracy — and by extension, the Republicans are anti-democratic authoritarians.

"Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans," Biden says in the ad. "There's nothing more important, nothing more sacred. That's been the work of my first term." It has not!

Biden has zero fear of those "independent fact-checkers" from liberal media outlets and institutes. But this is an ad pitched at Democrats, because the "freedom" talk is illustrated by visuals of "Abortion Is Health Care," "Love Is Love," and for gun grabbers, the "Everytown Survivor Network." Killing babies is a "fundamental freedom"? Scrapping the Second Amendment is about freedom?

All Republicans are summarily defined as "MAGA extremists" who hate freedom. Over pictures of Donald Trump with Ron DeSantis, and Jan. 6, the president says, "Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms. Cutting Social Security that you've paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy. Dictating what health care decisions women can make. Banning books and telling people who they can love. All while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote."

Biden and the Democrats routinely smear Republicans as "cutting Social Security," which the fact-checkers like PolitiFact have called out ... a little bit. But how is an entitlement program defined as a "freedom"?

Biden claims Republicans are "banning books," without defining terms. Parents are objecting to books with explicitly sexual or pornographic content in public school libraries. In the ad, there's a sign that reads "Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us." These "sex-positive" books that the libertine Left pushes are divisive, not uniting.

As for "censorship," that's exactly what the Democrats favor to fight "misinformation," using their allied "fact-checkers" to shut down dissenting voices on the internet. They shamelessly claim they're saving democracy even as they squelch opposition.

Which policy is Biden referring to when he says the "MAGA" folks are "telling people who they can love"? That's not where the LGBTQ debate is right now. It's about Democrats pushing to sneak around parents and acquire "gender-affirming care" for children, and about Democrats favoring biological males competing with girls in sports.

Then there's the typical trash about "making it more difficult for you to be able to vote." As in what? Requiring that voters present a photo ID at the polls is something 79% of Americans support. Why would Democrats be on the wrong side of that?

This is where you roll your eyes when Biden declares in the ad, "I know we're still a country that believes in honesty and respect and treating each other with dignity." That flies in the face of his reckless talk that the Republicans are somehow "Jim Crow 2.0." That's dishonest and disrespectful, and has been largely ignored by "fact-checkers."

Biden, the so-called devout Catholic, proclaims we're in a battle for the "soul of America," like he's on a spiritual crusade. But his agenda wages war on traditional religious values on behalf of pro-abortion and LGBTQ extremism, and his Justice Department talks of infiltrating Catholic churches to search for "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists."

This gets mangled by the press. NPR reporter Scott Detrow distorted Biden's 2024 theme: "In a hyperpoliticized culture war climate, he thinks most voters actually, in the end, just kind of want to see government get things done."

No, Democrats are the instigators of a "hyperpoliticized culture war climate." The news networks like NPR promote the leftist side of the culture war and ignore or demonize any opposition.

Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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