In a segment that felt more like a group therapy session than serious journalism, CNN’s Dana Bash and her panel seized on South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief, swiftly retracted declaration of martial law as an excuse to issue their usual alarmist warnings about Donald Trump.

The panel spent significant airtime drawing tenuous parallels between South Korea’s political turbulence and the United States under Trump’s incoming administration, with a heavy dose of condescension for anyone who might not share their apocalyptic worldview.

MJ Lee, a CNN correspondent, began with a historical overview of South Korea’s struggles with democracy, which seemed credible enough—until she veered into a hyperbolic warning about how Americans should interpret events abroad.

“For folks in my parents’ and grandparents’ generation, this kind of thing in Korea is not distant history,” Lee said, invoking her own biography to suggest that South Korea’s democratic challenges are a harbinger of doom for the United States under Trump.

She added, with all the gravitas of someone announcing the end of the world, “Given that Donald Trump is about to be president in a number of weeks, somebody who has said he wants to use the military to go after his own enemies, this is an important discussion for American democracy.”

Apparently, CNN believes the two situations are identical because… Trump once made some outlandish comments?

Bash, clearly eager to inject Trump into a conversation about South Korea, turned to CNN’s Phil Mattingly to expand on what she called “the Trump of it all.” Mattingly obliged, offering a verbose and overwrought assessment of global democratic decline that somehow all leads back to Trump.

“This president-elect is taking power at a moment where he clearly feels more emboldened than ever,” Mattingly declared, as if confidently predicting a dystopian future. “He plans to diverge sharply from norms, both domestically and internationally.”

Mattingly seemed genuinely aghast that Trump, elected by American voters, might—brace yourself—enact the policies he campaigned on. The horror!

Adding to the melodrama, the panel criticized President Joe Biden’s cautious response to the South Korean situation. When asked about Yoon’s martial law declaration, Biden reportedly said, “I’m just getting briefed.”

Rather than acknowledging the diplomatic complexities, Bash and her colleagues spun this as a missed opportunity to reinforce their narrative. Mattingly suggested Biden’s reticence might be due to Yoon’s role in the administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, but the underlying message was clear: anything less than full-throated condemnation of Yoon—or Trump—is unacceptable in CNN’s eyes.

What made this segment particularly striking was its blatant use of South Korea’s crisis as a stand-in for the panel’s grievances with Trump. Instead of focusing on the actual events in Seoul, the conversation devolved into dire warnings about what Trump might—or might not—do as president.

The irony was palpable: a panel ostensibly warning about the erosion of democracy spent more time fear-mongering about a democratically elected U.S. president than analyzing the actions of South Korea’s actual leader.

CNN’s fixation on Trump has long bordered on obsessive, but Tuesday’s discussion took it to new extremes. Instead of providing thoughtful analysis on South Korea’s challenges, the panel indulged in its favorite pastime: painting Trump as an existential threat to democracy.

If anything, the segment served as a reminder that Trump’s most vocal critics often do more to undermine their credibility than the man himself. For all their breathless warnings, one might wonder if they’re more interested in keeping viewers glued to their screens than in fostering any meaningful dialogue about democracy.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)