Proving that no subject is apolitical to the left, National Public Radio used its regular “Word of the Day” segment to indulge in left-wing paranoia of President Trump as authoritarian, in “Is the U.S. slipping into 'Competitive Authoritarianism?'” which aired on All Things Considered May 13. As oxymoronic as this sounds -- like "Pork-Roast Vegetarianism" -- It’s a favorite phrase on leftist channel MSNOW as well as leftist NPR. SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST: What kind of political system do we have in the United States these days? Some experts say the U.S. is no longer a liberal democracy. Instead, it's operating under a system called competitive authoritarianism. NPR's Frank Langfitt has the story behind our latest words of the week. FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Let's start with a definition. Competitive authoritarian countries have democratic rules and hold competitive elections, but the party in charge uses various tactics to tilt the electoral playing field in its favor to maintain power. Steven Levitsky is a professor of government at Harvard. He explained competitive authoritarianism last year on WAMU's show 1A. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) STEVEN LEVITSKY: Elected authoritarians, when they come to power, try to convert the state - which is supposed to be a neutral arbiter - into both a weapon and a shield. It's a weapon to be deployed against political rivals, and it is a shield to protect themselves and to protect their allies who engage in authoritarian or illegal behavior. LANGFITT: Levitsky says Trump's pardoning of the January 6 rioters is a classic tactic. Let's put side for the moment the notion that NPR long converted their funding from the state into propaganda for one party. Isn’t it ironic that the very first example NPR comes up with of “competitive authoritarianism” is letting offenders out of prison? Langfitt quoted unlabeled lefty professor Levitsky, seen here embarrassing himself by sucking up to New York Times' leftist columnist Jamelle Bouie at a Freedom From Religion Foundation conference. LANGFITT: Competitive authoritarianism is a new term. Levitsky and Lucan Way, now a professor at the University of Toronto, came up with it in 2002 to apply to systems in countries such as Serbia, Kenya and Peru. LUCAN WAY: We never - when we coined this term 25 years ago - never imagined that we would apply it to the United States. LANGFITT: But Levitsky says Trump is following a familiar playbook. LEVITSKY: When we began to see the Justice Department go after public critics of Trump, when we began to see lawsuits against media or attacks on universities that are viewed as critical of the government, all of these things are raising the cost of opposition. NPR doesn't see the Biden Justice Department going after Trump and thousands of people who support Trump as fitting their conspiracy theory. Those “attacks on universities” include UCLA, Harvard, and Columbia, so-called elite universities that shamefully failed to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian campus protests after the October 7 massacre, and in UCLA’s case, actively facilitating Jew-free zones on campus. Langfitt was thrilled that the term was spreading to other elitist media outlets. LANGFITT: The term is catching on. Since President Trump took office last year, searches on Google trends for competitive authoritarianism have spiked. It's also shown up in scores of publications from the Ventura County Star to The Scotsman in Edinburgh and The Indian Express in Mumbai…. Aren’t you glad you’re not paying for this anymore?