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Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Where Are The Democrats Heading?

As America has watched the Democrats flailing around in the face of Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, President Trump in the White House, and overwhelming numbers of GOP governors and state legislators, the question has arisen as to where the Democrats are heading.  Does the party have a plan to regain the majority or, at least, to move in that direction?  If so, what plan is that.

We've clearly all seen what transpired over the previous eight years.  In 2008, the Democrats won the presidency with Obama and took huge majorities in both houses of Congress.  Obama campaigned as a centrist but then moved quickly far to the left once in office.  The Democrats passed measures like Dodd Frank and Obamacare which really hurt the economy.  They went all out on environmental measures in ways that destroyed part of the American energy industry.  They made political correctness, words and appearances more important that actions.  That let Obama speak about foreign affairs as if the arc of history was more important than the actual deeds which would protect Americans from harm.

The result was that in 2010, the GOP took back the House and won a majority of state legislators across the country.  Obama won a narrow re-election in 2012, but the GOP still held the House.  Then in 2014, the GOP won the Senate and increased its margin of governors and legislatures.  By 2016, the Democrats were in crisis.  When Hillary Clinton ran, she did so as if her election were a sure thing.  She offered very little in the way of new policy.  She ran on the basis of her not being Donald Trump.  Maybe if Clinton were a positive, honest and appealing person she could have won that way.  Instead, however, America saw her as dishonest, negative and unappealing.  Winning as the lesser of two evils and being the one without a program cost her and her party the White House.  The entire Democrat campaign consisted of trashing Trump and the Republicans; it didn't work.

So where do the Dems go now?  So far, they are keeping their tactics unchanged.  There are no policy proposals from the Democrats.  They are still going forward with all negativity all the time.  Trump is the anti-Christ.  Betsy DeVos is the embodiment of evil.  Jeff Sessions is a racist.  Every move made by the GOP or President Trump threatens the foundation of Western Civilization. 

Here's the problem:  if this negative approach did not work in 2016, why do the Dems think it will lead to a different result as they keep it up now?

On top of the negativity, the Democrats seem to be working hard towards alienating parts of their base.  If you listen to the Dems talk, they claim to represent the working people of America.  Of course, it was those same working people who clinched the election for Trump.  So how are the Democrats attempting to win back the white working class?  First, they are going to pick a national chairman who will be an insult to that group.  Right now, the leader in the race for the new party chair is representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota.  Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress.  Obviously, that should not disqualify him from leading the party, but one does have to wonder if he will appeal to evangelical voters.  More than the religion, however, the problem is that Ellison was a long time supporter of the Nation of Islam.  That group is an anti-white, anti-Semitic bunch of people led by Louis Farrakhan (and before that by Ellijah Muhammed.)  Why would someone who supported a bigoted black separatist movement that calls white people "white devils" be a good choice to lead the party?  It makes no sense.  The Democrats actually seem to be adopting an stance of opposing the white working class. 

We may be watching the slow motion suicide of the Democrat party.

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