A Fox Business host is criticizing a Democratic candidate for president as being “authoritarian” for suggesting she might take executive action to stem gun violence across the country. Fox Business Network is a business news channel owned by the Fox News Group division of Fox Corporation.
Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat running for her party’s nomination to become president in 2020, recently stated that she might use her executive powers, if elected, to close the boyfriend loophole, enforce stricter background checks on all gun purchases, and enact other reforms to allow victims of gun violence to sue manufacturers for liability.
Harris pointed out that there is a medium-ground for the issue of guns in our country.
“There are people in Washington, D.C., supposed leaders, who have failed to have the courage to reject a false choice which says you’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away,” she said, per reporting from Politico.
Fox Business commentator Lou Dobbs, however, seems relegated to believe the opposite. In a tweet he authored on Tuesday, Dobbs chastised Harris for her suggestions at reform.
“This crop of Radical Dimms are outright authoritarians,” he wrote in his tweet, referring derogatorily to Democrats as “dimms.”
This crop of Radical Dimms are outright authoritarians–Harris: 'I'llTake Executive Action’ if Congress Doesn’t Pass Gun Legislation in First 100 Days https://t.co/eMjfGqiR20 #MAGA @realDonaldTrump #AmericaFirst #Dobbs
— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) April 23, 2019
Dobbs’ characterization of Harris may be misplaced. Indeed, one of the definitions offered by Merriam Webster Dictionary for the word “authoritarian” is that it’s a political ideology “favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people.”
Poll after poll demonstrates support for the ideas Harris has promoted, making the “authoritarian” argument that Dobbs is purporting hard to believe or understand.
Meanwhile, Dobbs expressed no qualms for President Donald Trump when he announced he was declaring a national emergency at the U.S. southern border. In fact, Dobbs was forthright in stating he supported the measure before Trump made the announcement official.
Dimms deny the violent reality at the border, refuse to act. @POTUS must declare our border crisis for what it is: a National Emergency in which tens of thousands of Americans are being killed and our borders overrun by human smuggling, drug and sex traffic. #MAGA #AmericaFirst https://t.co/NxwlPSZdUl
— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) January 14, 2019
Many observers have pointed out that the shifting of funds through executive force, to pay for a border wall that most Americans don’t support building, is itself questionably an authoritarian move on the part of the Trump administration.