Tanja Fajon, who has recently shared that she is appalled by Janez Janša’s “lack of diplomatic manners,” has allowed herself a “huge diplomatic slip-up,” in which she has not shown any diplomatic manners either. When she tried to explain why it is problematic for Janez Janša to support Donald Trump, she attacked Trump by calling him “an authoritarian leader, destroying world peace, who is not a defender of democracy.” Due to the diplomacy of the current government and its Minister of Foreign Affairs Anže Logar, we have lately established a decent relationship with the President of the United States for the first time in a while. This is probably the most important relationship for Slovenia, from the diplomatic point of view. But none of that seems to matter to Fajon – in addition to attacking Trump, she also grossly insulted him and lied about him.
Tanja Fajon, the leader of the largest opposition party SD, who also makes regular “appearances” on our show, Who is lying to you? (“Kdo vam laže?”), where she fills up the Intellectuals of the week (“Intelektualke tedna”) section, once again struck with a blatantly stupid statement, which was also a lie, on the “public service broadcaster and window to the world.” At the same time, she accused Prime Minister Janez Janša of lacking diplomatic skills, even though she herself did not show any either.
For you, we will dismantle another one of the diplomatic setbacks and the intellectual disgrace of the MEP, lie after lie.
Schizophrenic Fajon
This is the definition of the word authoritarian, as found in a public internet dictionary: “Authoritarian is defined as something or someone who has complete or almost complete control over one or more people. A government who is more concerned with having people obey laws than in people having some freedom is an example of an authoritarian government.” Let’s forget about the fact that these definitions are so general that they are practically useless. In a pandemic, almost all governments of the world could be described as authoritarian. But what is interesting is that in the U.S., the left-wing is accusing Trump of not being authoritarian enough when it comes to the pandemic. If we consider the fact that part of the reason why she told the lie about Trump was so she could defend his rival, Joe Biden, all we can say is: “Schizophrenic!”
And even if we forget about the pandemic for a moment, it is absurd to accuse Trump, who is arguably one of the most conservative presidents in recent decades, of preferring laws over freedoms, given that he is also being accused of neoliberalism because he is lowering taxes, deregulating and liberalizing the state bureaucracy. Accusations of a kind of authoritarianism, or more precisely, statism, come from the ranks of the naïve libertarians, who consider the customs wars with China to be authoritarian. In any case, Fajon’s comment was stupid, unless we convert the concept of freedom or reduce it to only the struggle for the privileges of the homosexuals, immigrants, and minorities.
We also cannot forget the fact that the SD party is the successor of the actual, de facto authoritarian Communist Party, in which they still celebrate and bow down to mass murderers who killed on behalf of the authoritarian government. Remember the incident of Fajon and two of her party colleagues bowing down before the statue of Kidrič?
The second lie Fajon told about Trump, the claim that he is ruining world peace, is even more unfounded than the first one and is almost impossible to defend, given that Trump is the first American President in a long time to start no new wars, but rather seek to end old ones, which has resulted in many peace agreements and international diplomatic arrangements in Europe and the Middle East, and so on. SDS MP Tomaž Lisec called out Fajon and wrote the truth, posting the following on Twitter: “Iran lovers are going insane. Trump has established peace with Russia, China, North Korea… He is also trying to make peace in the Middle East, among the former Soviet Union republics… He won the democratic elections. This is not just talking crazy; this is actual madness.”
When someone uses the language with the composed “philosophy” of Antonio Gramsci, when they think like a Machiavellian revolutionary and a Stalinist type of radical, they also use terms for which they themselves do not know exactly what they mean. This category also includes Fajon’s third lie about Trump; her claim that he “does not like democracy.” Firstly: Trump was democratically elected. Secondly: Trump has not changed any of the democratic processes through legislation. Thirdly: Trump did not change or reduce any freedoms by law. Fourthly: Does this mean that Trump does not like the kind of democracy that Fajon’s mind has made up?
Another sad day in the valley of social democracy. With Fajon as their President, there is a high chance of them slipping into the abyss of what she herself is accusing Trump of, or perhaps, they are already there.
Aleš Ernecl