Harris Calls Trump a 'Tyrant.' Watch How The Same Outlets Cover It.

Kamala Harris stood in front of a room of Georgia Democrats this week and called the President of the United States a “tyrant.” She told the crowd to turn their “pain into purpose” in the fight against him.

Sit with that phrasing for a second. Not “policy we disagree with.” Not “an administration going too far.” A tyrant — the kind of word that implies the normal tools of democratic opposition, like, say, elections, aren't sufficient to the threat.

Now imagine the opposite scenario. A Republican official stands in front of a crowd and calls a sitting Democratic president a tyrant, urging supporters to turn their pain into purpose against him. That clip leads the evening news for a week. Op-eds get written about the “escalating rhetoric of the right” and what it means for political violence in America.

Harris's version will likely run for a news cycle and be forgotten, because this is a pattern, not an incident: certain words are alarming only when they come from certain directions.

To be clear, The Right Ledger isn't in the business of pretending Trump is above criticism. He isn't, and when he gets something wrong, we'll say so plainly. But there's a real difference between disagreeing with a president's policies and telling your supporters he's an illegitimate tyrant who must be stopped. One of those framings gets covered as dangerous rhetoric. The other gets covered as a Tuesday. Only one political party currently enjoys that benefit of the doubt, and it isn't the one you'd guess from the headlines.