I don't need to cite examples of Democrats' blaming Republicans for divisiveness and falsely extolling their own aspirations of unity. They are everywhere. It's what they do, from their talk of our "common humanity," to their glorification of all kinds of diversity, except diversity of thought, to their proclaimed monopoly on tolerance.
It's ironic that Democrats get away with this lie. It is Republicans, or at least the conservatives among them, who preach that a rising tide lifts all boats -- that economic growth across the board will help the most people.
Democrats simply can't be honest about economic policy. They have to demonize the wealthy to incite class warfare. They must perpetuate and expand government dependency programs, which means creating incentives for people to remain out of the work force. They must vilify the rich for not paying their fair share of taxes, despite the undeniable fact that upper-income earners pay far more taxes -- actual and percentage -- and that the lower half of income earners pay no income taxes at all. How much "fairer" can it be for them?
I am old enough to remember then-Senator Barack Obama's 2008 campaign promise to bring all people together in a spirit of harmony and healing. I also remember him doing just the opposite once elected.
And I remember Obama's 2012 gamble of appealing directly to minorities and alienating other groups, apparently on the theory that disaffected groups outnumber the sum of all others -- or at least that agitating them would increase their turnout and ensure his victory. If a Republican candidate had dared such overt divisiveness, the mainstream media would have tarred and feathered him.
The Democrats are having a field day attacking Trump, and he's giving them way too much ammunition. But no matter whom Republicans put up, Democrats will viciously disparage them. To them, almost all Republican candidates and officeholders are mean-spirited bigots.
If only Republicans could successfully communicate their case that perpetual malaise, which is the only thing Democrats offer anymore, is unnecessary and correctable. If only they could demonstrate that the Democrats' socialistic and regulatory policies thwart prosperity for all groups of people -- except, ironically, the very wealthy.
But we haven't made our case, or it's falling on deaf ears, because Democrats are paying people, in effect, to remain on their plantations. They are encouraging them not to be productive members of society. They are deliberately undermining the nuclear family. They are fomenting envy and disharmony. It's tragic.
Look at Hillary Clinton's ballyhooed economic plan. What an utter package of deceit! She tells us she's going to create more than 10 million new jobs -- by continuing the same miserably failed policies of Barack Obama. Obama and Clinton claim they saved the economy from collapse after the 2008 financial crisis, which their policies caused. But eight years later we've yet to see appreciable economic growth from this team. For them, 1 percent growth is the new 5 percent. Obamanomics has given us the worst recovery since World War II. Indeed, it is an insult to the term "recovery" to designate this mess as such.
No matter what he says now, President Obama promised his obscene $800 billion "stimulus" package would actually stimulate, and it did the opposite.
But Clinton would continue the ruse, expecting us to believe four more years of this insanity will produce different results. Her five-part plan is more of the same nonsense: 1) Investing in infrastructure. (Deja vu, anyone?) 2) Make college available for all. (But how will graduates get jobs in their recessionary economy?) 3) Make companies share more profits with their employees. (And these people claim they're not socialists). 4) Make corporations, the wealthy and Wall Street pay their fair share. (I've covered this.) 5) Create policies that "support 21st-century families" -- equal pay, paid leave, reduced child care costs.
Seriously, which of these strategies could conceivably unleash sustained economic growth? Other than the infrastructure spending (which also won't create long-term growth), these ideas have nothing to do with expanding the economic pie, but only with redistribution. Not only is Clinton's five-point plan destined for failure, she will expand the regulatory state, which is smothering small businesses.
If Democrats ever believed in economic growth, they've long since abandoned it, going with the myth that we have a finite pie and that they, as Big Sister, must control how it's allocated, the free market be damned.
I repeat: The Democrats' viability requires keeping us at each other's throats. They must divide us. Consider Clinton's recent shunning of police unions. She is so desperate to retain 90 percent of the African-American vote that she told the 335,000-member National Fraternal Order of Police she won't seek their endorsement.
The chilling truth is that Hillary Clinton would give us a third Obama term, and I don't know how we can come back from it.
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