Democrats’ Long History of Predicting Apocalypse

A tone of bleakness is quickly spreading through the nascent race for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination, the Washington Post’s Ashley Parker recently observed. Donald Trump, who has pledged to serve as the instrument of Republican voters’ “retribution,” isn’t the only one to have embraced what the Post called “dark, apocalyptic themes.” The whole GOP field, declared and undeclared, is deploying doomsday rhetoric.

“America is on a path of doubt, division, and self-destruction,” Nikki Haley fretted, warning of Joe Biden’s ongoing campaign to destroy “people’s patriotism” and replace it with “dangerous self-loathing.” Ron DeSantis lamented the onset of “dystopia, where people’s rights were curtailed and their livelihoods were destroyed.” Senator Tim Scott admonished the White House for leaving America’s borders “unsafe, insecure, and wide open,” supplanting law and order with “fear and chaos.” “You’re going to have World War III, if something doesn’t happen fast,” Trump prophesied in his speech to CPAC attendees. Republicans in general “warn that Biden and a ‘radical,’ ‘woke mob’ of liberals are determined to ‘destroy’ and ‘ruin’ the nation,” Parker wrote.

A tone of bleakness is quickly spreading through the nascent race for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination, the Washington Post’s Ashley Parker recently observed. Donald Trump, who has pledged to serve as the instrument of Republican voters’ “retribution,” isn’t the only one to have embraced what the Post called “dark, apocalyptic themes.” The whole GOP field, declared and undeclared, is deploying doomsday rhetoric.

“America is on a path of doubt, division, and self-destruction,” Nikki Haley fretted, warning of Joe Biden’s ongoing campaign to destroy “people’s patriotism” and replace it with “dangerous self-loathing.” Ron DeSantis lamented the onset of “dystopia, where people’s rights were curtailed and their livelihoods were destroyed.” Senator Tim Scott admonished the White House for leaving America’s borders “unsafe, insecure, and wide open,” supplanting law and order with “fear and chaos.” “You’re going to have World War III, if something doesn’t happen fast,” Trump prophesied in his speech to CPAC attendees. Republicans in general “warn that Biden and a ‘radical,’ ‘woke mob’ of liberals are determined to ‘destroy’ and ‘ruin’ the nation,” Parker wrote.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.