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Monday, February 10, 2020

THE ‘MODERATE’ DEMOCRAT LONG AGO WENT EXTINCT…


If the attempted coup, aka the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, accomplished anything it was to make crystal clear that which so many of us, even those of us who do not reside, politically speaking, within the odd assortment of losers which still refers to itself as the ‘Democrat’ Party, have known for what has been a very, very long time.  And that, of course, is the fact that the ‘Moderate’ Democrat, as a political animal, has been forced into going the way of the dinosaur and the Dodo.  

If anything is for certain in this election season, it’s that everything seems uncertain. Should the strong economy continue and nothing too crazy comes to pass, it’s conceivable that Republicans could hang onto the White House, the Senate, and possibly even regain control of the House.  President Trump will be on the ballot in all those districts Democrats managed to strip from Republicans, and now they’ll also have their own record, or lack thereof (impeachment, anyone?), upon which to run.

But without a doubt, whoever assumes the presidency in 2021, our government will remain remarkably divided.  If President Trump does manage to win a second term, he will very likely still be made to face a legislative branch partially controlled by the Democrats.  If that happens to be the Senate, good luck getting any additional judges or appointees confirmed.  If it’s the House, the president won’t be able to sneeze without Adam Schiff calling for an impeachment inquiry. If it’s both, God help US!

But it’s important understand that things weren’t always this way.  Richard Nixon won 301 electoral votes in 1968 and a crushing 520 in 1972, but his party controlled neither the House nor the Senate at any time during his time in office. It was even after Nixon’s 1972 landslide victory, that Democrats still controlled both Houses of Congress. Yet Nixon was able to appoint four arguably conservative Supreme Court justices and a whopping 231 federal judges, 38 more than Franklin Roosevelt.

Republicans didn’t come close to gaining control of either legislative branch until Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory propelled them to what would become a six-year Senate majority run.  Despite Reagan’s popularity and a landslide 1984 reelection, running against Walter ‘One State’ Mondale, whose campaign was run by that political mastermind and brilliant tactician, Bob Beckel, that made it possible for Mondale to win only one state, the House remained firmly under Democrat control.   

So if we didn’t know better and just assumed that things have always been as they are today, one might assume that President Reagan likely got a few judges and appointees confirmed, which he did, but likely wasn’t able to get much in the way of meaningful conservative legislation passed.  One could assume that, but one would be wrong.  In fact, Reagan’s signature Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 passed in the Senate (89-11) and skated through the Democrat controlled House 238-195.

But President Reagan was the only one to be on the receiving end of a little bipartisanship, it has worked the other way too.  For instance, it was ‘Slick Willy’ who reformed the welfare system with Republican help from a Congress controlled by the Republicans.  And even Barry ‘O’ worked with Republicans to make the George W. Bush tax cuts permanent.  Both also appointed a total of four Supreme Court justices with bipartisan support and very little opposition or obstruction from Republicans.

Other than those few exceptions of trade and criminal justice reform, can anyone imagine President Trump getting Democrat help on anything considered even remotely conservative these days?  Nope!  And can anyone imagine the Democrat led House ending its continuing efforts to conjure some way to remove President Trump from office and focus on points of agreement and legislative ideas that are bipartisan and passable?  I think we could expect Hell to fully freeze over before that happens.

And why might that be?  Since day one of his presidency Donald Trump has always expressed a willingness to work with Democrats, so despite his bluster at times it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t jump at the chance to do something good. In fact, Republicans will all-too-often try to work with Democrats even to the detriment of their own stated principles.  The most likely reason is that Democrats in office have changed as their constituencies have moved further and further to the hard left.

Consider those once referred to, in a time that seems long ago, as ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats, these ‘moderate’ Democrats were essentially “conservative” Democrat House members who favored “fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and bipartisan consensus rather than conflict with Republicans.”  Although you’d never know it there are today currently 27 members who still laughingly refer to themselves as being ‘Blue Dogs,’ who, if interested, could help Republicans, help Americans.

If they were, they could very easily follow in the steps of New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew, but they haven’t, and they likely won’t.  And why is that?  The answer is simple.  It’s because there is today, no one who qualifies as being a ‘moderate’, or dare I say ‘conservative,’ Democrat today.  As I mentioned earlier, it is a breed of politician that was made to long ago go extinct.  Perhaps a more accurate way to put it would be to say those individuals were effectively purged from their own party.

Even on the impeachment of Donald Trump, one Democrat senator would have meant a bipartisan acquittal, and so it was therefore something not be allowed by the Democrat ‘leader’ in the Senate Charlie Schumer, all voted to convict.  Even the ‘reasonable-sounding’ Joe Manchin was eventually corralled by Charlie into betraying his constituents who, albeit naively, allowed this useless dolt to remain in office.  But then, I suppose, we are talking about West Virginia.  No offense, but geez!

If Manchin’s betrayal in particular has taught us anything, it’s that in the end, it’s good to know the rules these days.  Republicans range from solid to a Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney form of squishy, but there are no, as in Zero, Zip, Zilch Nada, ‘moderate’ Democrats. The age of the bipartisan Democrat is long gone, and isn’t likely to return any time soon.  If you live in a state where one is running, you’ve at least got a fighting chance voting by Republican, because voting Democrat is a no-win game.

And so there are no bona fide ‘moderate’ Democrats, but they did once exist.  And as proof of that I would offer up an incident that occurred back in 1963 when at the request of a constituent, Rep. Syd Herlong, then a Florida House Democrat, read into the record the 45 goals of communism, from a book by W. Cleon Skousen, doing so as a warning.  Virtually every prediction has since came true, one being to take over one major political party.  Today we have Democrats running for president as Socialists!

In the past, Democrats never seemed quite so determined in their efforts to place party over country, at least to the degree that we see them doing today.  There were decent Democrats.  While I can’t say that I ever voted for any of them, over time I’ve come to be even less apt to do so.  There was a time when Democrats would have applauded low unemployment, fewer in poverty or the fact that fewer Americans are in need of being on food stamps because it was good for the country.  But not today.

And they wouldn’t have embarked on a bogus impeachment attempt of a Republican president from the very moment he took office, because they hate him.  Or block every single thing the president has tried to do out of some twisted unwillingness to allow him to achieve any level of success.  They weren’t the resistance in days gone by, what they were, though, was the loyal opposition.  It used to be that everyone had the right to vote for a candidate of their choosing without being called names.

There was a time when Democrats actually accepted the results of an election lost as being the result of the will of the people.  Not so much these days.  Democrats didn’t manufacture impeachment charges against Nixon.  It was Republican members who convinced him to resign because they would have voted for his removal.  Democrat senators in the past would have voted to acquit President Trump based on what it was that he was accused of doing.  Because it would have been the right thing to do.

So what changed?  There are no longer commonly shared values or goals.  As crazy as Pelosi is even she knew impeachment was not a good political move.  But she was held hostage by her far left lunatic fringe who demanded it.  The bottom line here is that compromise is no longer tolerated within the modern Democrat Party. What they want, open borders, abortion on demand, many don’t. The big lie today is that there are still ‘moderate’ Democrats. They may run as such but they govern as radicals.

The American people need to decide what kind of government they want going forward, one of obstruction, gridlock, and impeachment or one that works to serve ALL of the people.  No one benefits from the kind of hateful destructive politics we've seen from the Democrat Party and there is no reason to believe that will change any time soon.  We already know with Democrats in control the focus moves away from the people and in favor of government.  We must vote out these left wing clowns.

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