THE PATRIOT POST - ALEXANDER'S COLUMN 07/25/2018

The 'New Face' of the Democrat Party?

The surge of socialist sentiments is bad for Democrat midterm hopefuls and bad for the future of Liberty.

Mark Alexander

"We must make our election between economy and Liberty, or profusion and servitude." —Thomas Jefferson (1816) The Democrat Party announced its 2018 election motto: "For the People," apparently an ironic excerpt from Republican Abe Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which referred to "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Ironic, I note, because while Lincoln is credited with having emancipated our nation's slaves, Democrats have spent the last half-century enslaving poor urban blacks on the poverty plantations of their so-called "Great Society." Indeed, Democrats have a long and sordid record of masterful hypocrisy. Given their latest efforts to transform a once-noble party into the Socialist Democrat Party, their motto would more appropriately be "For the People's Republic." The weedy seeds of socialism were mostly dormant until the election of Barack Obama, who, along with his sidekick Hillary Clinton, cultivated those seeds and, in protest to the 2016 election of Donald Trump, are now seeing them sprout around the country. The net result is, predictably, that fewer Democrats are proud to be American and more are identifying with the anti-American tenets of socialism being propagated by the Left. The contrast between Republican optimism and Democrat pessimism has rarely been so starkly defined. The 2016 emergence of socialist Bernie Sanders, himself a card-carrying member of the rich and famous leftists, is a testament to the "success" of the ultra-radicalization of our political discourse over Obama's tenure. And, consequently, the Demos have unleashed a beast that they will have difficulty taming. On Sanders's coattails comes the surprise rise of the socialist darling de jour, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after the Millennial's shocking upset of 10-term Demo incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in New York's 14th congressional district. Crowley, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, was at the head of the line to succeed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and he led Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, by 35 points two weeks ahead of the primary. But in a district with almost 215,000 active registered Democrats, only 13% turned out, and that tiny subset gave Cortez a 4,163-vote win over Crowley — 57% to 42%. So energized were Cortez's "useful idiots" that she also won the Reform Party's write-in primary (among a field of 22 candidates) in the neighboring 15th congressional district of Democratic incumbent Rep. Jose Serrano. Fortunately, she can't occupy two seats at once. Leftist DNC Chief Tom Perez immediately declared that Cortez "represents the future of our party," thus displacing Maxine Waters as yesterday's arbiter of the Democrat Party's future. But Cortez is just the latest manifestation of the socialism deniers who have infested the Democrat Party. The Sanders/Cortez duo is obviously a play for idealistic (read: "uninformed") Millennial voters who can then be rolled into general election campaigns. But is she something more, given that all the hate-filled Demo rhetoric has stirred up a broader spectrum of their base? There is a surge in young voters, who now account for 61% of new voter registrations. One thing is certain, however: Cortez is no smarter than her nescient national fan base, as a brief video montage of her remarks reveals. Declaring, "Call me a socialist; I don't give a d—n," Cortez offered this insight on why socialism is best: "When we talk about democratically socialist economies, first of all, they're done with the full input of everybody. You vote. It's democratic. So if something is not a good idea, it doesn't get voted for, ideally." Actually, that's the definition of a "dumbocracy." Apparently she doesn't realize that the subjugated masses in Red China and the former USSR also "voted" for their tyrannical communist regimes. The fact is, "democratic socialism" is nothing more than communism lite, and the consequences are the same. Cortez says, "For me, democratic socialism is about — really ... no person in America should be too poor to live." But she can't name a country where socialism has been successful, and democratic socialism will ensure that all people in America are "too poor to live." She dodges questions about Sanders's socialist paradise, Venezuela, where statism has degraded what was once a wealthy country into a cesspool of corruption where 90% of the people now live in utter poverty and starvation is rampant. On her advocacy for socialism, she insists, "I do think that, absolutely, capitalism was the most efficient and best economy, perhaps, for the time that it was at, perhaps. ... Ultimately we are marching towards [socialism]. I do think that we are going to see an evolution in our economic system of an unprecedented degree." Her abjectly ignorant claim about jobs — "Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family." — won her the "Liar Pants on Fire" rating from the leftist "fact-checkers" at PolitiFact. The less-than-erudite Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also lit her pants on fire by doubling down on Cortez's myth, telling a national audience that most Americans have "two, three, or four jobs to try to pay the rent and keep food on the table." Challenged on her socialist credentials, Warren responded, "I am a capitalist. Come on! I believe in markets!" Of course, economic illiteracy is a staple of Demo Party socialists such as DNC Deputy Chairman Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who believes that open borders will lead to prosperity and that undermining American wages will result in prosperity. And on the hot topic of immigration, the following war cry was central to Cortez's platform: "It's time to abolish ICE. We must abolish ICE." In fact, Democrat leaders don't care about immigrant children unless they can be used as political fodder. Apparently, Cortez isn't aware that 74% of those arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year had prior criminal records, or that only 25% of registered voters support abolishing ICE. Walking back her absurd assertion that Israel is the occupier of Palestine, Cortez confessed, "I am not the expert on geopolitics on this issue." That was a colossal understatement. In fact, Cortez is not an "expert" on anything — except perhaps rallying the leftist mob. That notwithstanding, could she be the "the future of the Democrat Party"? Unfortunately, given the party's leftward transformation under Obama, the answer may be yes. Economic illiteracy has never deterred most Democrat voters. Notably, several other Demo primary results were equally stunning. Voters in Maryland selected Bernie Sanders-backed former NAACP leader Ben Jealous to take on popular Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. And the California Democrat Party spurned long-time party stalwart Sen. Dianne Feinstein, instead endorsing hard-leftist Kevin de León by a whopping 65% to Feinstein's 7%. (Feinstein nonetheless won her state's "jungle primary" and will appear as usual on November's ballot.) All may not yet be lost, however. There are still a few voices of reason in the Demo wilderness. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) insisted, "The reality is that if we are going to be a majority party — if we are actually going to win in November — we've got to have a diversity of views and I think that's one of the things that's made our party strong in the past. But if we become narrower — if we become more divided — then we can do that as Democrats. We are just not going to win." Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said, "If we as a Democratic Party are going to move from a minority at every level that is dedicated to resistance to a majority that is capable of governing, we have got to move from grievance to optimism. And we've got to abandon a politics of anxiety that is characterized by wild-eyed proposals and instead deliver ideas and practical solutions." Former Connecticut Senator and Demo veep candidate Joe Lieberman asked, "What is the Democratic party going to be? I am still a Democrat and when I see somebody that really says she is a socialist... If you look at the policies, those are not policies that will be supported very many places across America. If her win makes her into what [DNC chairman Perez] calls 'the new face of the Democratic Party,' the Democratic Party will not have a bright future. ... [She talks] from the Democratic-Socialist organization policy book." Another of the Left's temporary darlings, disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, got roasted by social media for his appeal to sanity: "Democrats, please, please don't lose your minds and rush to the socialist left. This president and his Republican Party are counting on you to do exactly that. America's great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership." Even Obama's former secretary of state, leftist John Kerry (D-MA), insists, "We have got to get away from this constant effort to destroy a presidency, whoever's it is. It is tearing our country apart, and I think it is very, very dangerous for our democracy." By way of trying to explain the recent emergence of Democrat socialists, political analyst Dennis Prager surmised that this is the result of leftist hysterics: "If you vote Democrat this November, you are voting for hysteria, lies, socialism, and even the cheapening of the Holocaust. But more than anything, a vote for Democrats in November is a vote for hysteria — the greatest and darkest in American history." But Democrats have always capitalized on hysteria, betting that the majority of their constituents (women voters) are emotional incontinent dupes. Conversely, conservative female voters demonstrate the courage to think for themselves rather than being swept up by the groupthink of emotive masses. The Democrat Party has long passed its expiration date. The high-water mark for reasonable and rational Democrats was in 2005, when Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA) retired. In his 2003 book, A National Party No More, Miller wrote, "In the eyes of Middle America, the Democrat Party has become a value-neutral party. ... Today our national Democrat leaders look south and say, 'I see one-third of a Nation and it can go to hell.' Either the party is not a national party or the candidates were not national candidates. ... There was a time when the leaders of the Democrat Party understood both the policy and political value of cutting taxes." If the Sanders/Cortez road show reflects a core directional shift for the Democrat Party, the volume of "impressionables" they compel to vote may be offset by those who are disenchanted with the "new face" of the party and are now walking away. A recent reputable year-over-year poll sponsored by NBC/Wall Street Journalindicates some significant shifts in loyalty to the Demo Brand. Notably, polls tend to be lagging indicators, and the recent socialist uprising and calls to abolish ICE probably aren't fully reflected in this survey. There are a lot of metaphors that could rightly describe what's going on with Democrats, but my preference would be the inimitable words of Forrest Gump: "Stupid is as stupid does." In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien writes, "Handsome is as handsome does," meaning that true handsomeness is a matter of deeds, not appearances. In the context of Forrest Gump, it means that true stupidity is a matter of deeds, not appearances. Bottom line: If this surge of socialist sentiment plays out in deeds rather than appearances, that may be costly for Democrat midterm hopefuls, but it most assuredly will be bad for the future of American Liberty. Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776