After celebrating Tuesday's takeover of Virginia's legislature and the Kentucky governorship, the liberal establishment appears poised to crush its biggest threat: the surging candidacy of Elizabeth Warren.
From the tempo and tenor of the attacks, establishment fears of Warren's success are real -- and understandably so.
Two Wednesday polls show Warren running even with Joe Biden nationally. And a new Iowa poll shows Warren in front of the field with 20%, and Biden falling into fourth place with 15%.
The danger for Democrats: While Warren is now the party's front-runner, they fear she's a sure loser to Donald Trump in 2020.
And, again, with reason. A recent poll of six battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan, showed Trump beating or tying Warren in all of them except for Arizona.
Nightmare scenario: Warren wins the nomination, but when her neo-Marxist agenda is exposed, Middle America recoils in horror.
The economic elite is already sounding the alarm.
Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase says Warren "vilifies successful people." Microsoft founder Bill Gates says her proposals would imperil "innovation" and "capital formation."
Writing in The New York Times, Obama adviser Steven Rattner describes a Warren presidency as "a terrifying prospect."
Warren would "extend the reach and weight of the federal government far further into the economy than anything even Franklin Roosevelt dreamed of (and) ... turn America's uniquely successful public-private relationship into a dirigiste European-style system."
"If you want to live in France" -- where half the GDP is controlled by the regime -- says Rattner, "Warren should be your candidate."
What finally shocked anti-Warren liberals into action was her recent revelation of how she intends to pay for her "Medicare for all" plan.
Warren's plan would require at least $23 trillion more in federal spending over a decade. Other experts say the added costs could run to $32 trillion, raising the U.S. government's share of the GDP by one-half and abolishing the private health insurance plans of 156 million Americans.
"Many of America's global champions, like banks and tech giants, would be dismembered," writes Rattner, "Shale fracking would be banned, which would send oil and natural gas prices soaring and cost millions of Americans their jobs."
Beyond "Medicare for All," Warren has other plans. Universal child care and free schooling from pre-kindergarten through college and the cancelation of student loans, plus a new look at reparations for slavery.
How would President Warren pay for all her "plans"?
She would raise the corporate rate to 35% from 21%, and slam a 40% tax on the profits of companies that try to flee the country.
She would raise the capital gains tax, impose new estate taxes, raise Social Security taxes on folks with higher incomes, and confiscate 2% of the wealth of those with $50 million in assets and 3% of the wealth of those with $1 billion, every year.
Writes Politifact: "All told, we counted $7 trillion in new spending over a 10-year period, and that's without Medicare for All. On the flip side, Warren offered specific tax proposals that came to $4.55 trillion."
Still, Warren's socialism is not what her main rivals, all white men, are zeroing in on. They've decided to play hardball.
Thursday, under a headline, "Warren Faces Accusations that She's 'Angry,' Which Supporters Say is Sexist," The Washington Post reported:
"Two of the leading male candidates in the Democratic presidential primary race -- Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg -- have escalated separate lines of attack as they attempt to counter the field's most prominent woman: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is antagonistic and angry."
Warren has a "my way or the highway" approach, said Buttigieg, she is "so absorbed in the fighting that it is as though fighting were the purpose."
Biden says Warren, who has a real shot at taking the nomination, reflects "an angry unyielding viewpoint that has crept into our politics."
This is "treacherous," warns the Post, "given that many Democrats remain upset over what they view as the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton, the party's last nominee."
The Democratic Party today defines itself as an inclusive party of women, gays, Hispanics, African Americans and other people of color.
Yet three months out from the decisive early contests of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, the party is going into the semifinals of its contest for a leader and future president without a single person of color in the final four.
Moreover, the three white males are denigrating and piling on the woman who is the front-runner with attacks on her personality for which conservatives, if they used such tactics, would be charged with "dog-whistling" the white working class.
When one looks at the approval-disapproval rating of the president, re-election appears problematic. When one looks at the Democrats' agenda and field of candidates, the odds of Trump's re-election seem a good deal better.
This thing is by no means over.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
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