Adults in the Democratic Party, who seem like flustered parents at an out-of-control toddler birthday bash, have been warning about the public’s perception of them.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reason to worry. The 22 declared candidates for the presidential nomination lean far to the Left. Which means they represent the center of their now-far-Left party.
The mini-wave for “moderate” Joe Biden reflects a desperate pullback from the zany public image fostered by wild-haired Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and radical freshman Congresspersons Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar.
Ms. Omar, notorious for anti-Semitic remarks, called Republicans “goons” at a Women’s March event on Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol co-hosted by former Communist Party vice-presidential candidate Angela Davis. Ms. Tlaib gained liberal fame by saying of President Trump, “we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf-----.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described socialist who sounds like a Capital C Communist, has garnered the most coverage. The Green New Deal, her plan to eliminate farting cows and gasoline-fueled engines in 11 years while redistributing wealth, has been embraced by most of the Democratic field.
Here are a few examples of where the nation’s would-be leaders would take us.
They all back abortion on demand, various plans for “free” college tuition, draconian gun control and oppose strengthening the southern border. They deny that the ongoing flood of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants constitutes a “crisis.” They oppose voter ID laws and other measures that discourage vote fraud. They support “The Equality Act,” which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to traditional civil rights categories like race, religion, national origin and sex. This would give the LGBTQ bullies a massive weapon with which to criminalize Christianity, force people – including schoolteachers – to lie about sex, and allow men to invade women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants taxpayers to absorb the cost of student debt up to $50,000 per student. Her “Accountable Capitalism Act” would require large corporations to get a “corporate charter” by which the government would tell them how to run their companies. When Mussolini did this, it was called Fascism.
Bernie Sanders, whose communist background is well documented, calls for Medicare for All that eliminates private health insurance. This goes beyond even Great Britain, which allows people to purchase private care. He’s also for letting prison inmates vote. That includes Boston Marathon mass murderer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and child-killing abortionist Kermit Gosnell.
New Jersey Sen. Cory “Spartacus” Booker wants Medicare for All to cover illegal immigrants’ health care, as does New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Sanders and Sen. Warren. All of them also support abolishing the Electoral College and are “open” to packing the Supreme Court with more justices.
Kamala Harris also backs the Green New Deal and wants to ban right-to-work protections in all 50 states.
Julian Castro, Housing Secretary under Obama, is another environmental extremist, who tweeted: “We're gonna say no to subsidizing big oil and say yes to passing a Green New Deal."
Former Texas Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’ Rourke not only opposes fortifying the U.S. border, but wants to demolish existing barriers. On April 29, he unveiled a $5 trillion plan aiming for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. How to finance it? "Changes to the tax code to ensure corporations and the wealthiest among us pay their fair share.” Yes, storm the Bastille, roll out the guillotines, and spread the wealth. Not a new plan.
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, whose father Joseph was a Marxist professor who lionized Communist theorist Antonio Gramsci, wants to abolish the Electoral College and put his partner into the White House as “First Gentleman.”
Minnesota’s Sen. Amy Klobuchar, another alleged “moderate,” praises the Green New Deal and doesn’t depart from the party’s radical cultural or economic agendas in any significant way.
Back to Mr. Biden. “Middle Class Joe” was Barack Obama’s wingman in even the most radical policy ventures. He’s all the way into abortion, the LGBTQ agenda, socialist healthcare, confiscatory taxation and ever more government. He race-baited a black audience in 2012 by claiming that Republicans would “put y’all back in chains.”
But, somehow we’re supposed to believe he’s less radical.
There are other candidates, but they all share this: hatred of Donald Trump.
During a town hall meeting in Iowa in March, Sen. Gillibrand accused Mr. Trump of being “afraid.” Projecting what she and other Democrats have been doing, she said, “He's spewed hate and fear and division and darkness all across the country.”
She asked her audience to "remember when this country had a president who was brave."
That’s easy. How about this morning?
Robert Knight is a contributor to Townhall.
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