U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (R) interjects as President Barack Obama delivers remarks at a reception for the 25th anniversary of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics at the White House in Washington, October 15, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - GF10000246643
Former President Obama declared concern Saturday that Democrats are creating ”a circular firing squad” by embracing progressive socialists. He is right. Democrats are setting up a 2020 landslide -- for President Trump.
Some hope former Vice President Joe Biden will save the day, but it's unlikely. When he does declare his candidacy, what happens next will be fascinating.
What remains of the Kennedy-Truman-Clinton Democratic Party is in tatters. They imagine with relief that Biden, a seasoned — albeit perambulating, out-of-step candidate — can rise to the top. They are likely wrong.
The progressive-socialist wing of the new Democratic Party is powerful. But that will be the party’s downfall.
This new wing of the Democratic Party has no time for aging Joe Biden, a onetime law-and-order, anti-drug, pro-free speech, gun-owning, far-too-familiar Catholic. Biden is not hip, and could not be if he wanted to be. Biden is not woke. He is not lit, turnt, or fire.
Biden will be out-gunned and undone by the anti-American history wing of his own party. They are already out-raising him on mobile apps, using pro-socialist, anti-free market, pro-drug legalization, free college, free health care, anti-history rhetoric.
The new Democratic Party has contempt for Biden’s “white privilege,” faith, good fortune, old ways and salute of our flag. This ignorance and indifference will almost surely sideline the Democrats’ best shot. He has lived long enough to love his country, even if he borrowed a speech in 1988 from British Labor leader Neil Kinnock.
As Democrats feel their oats, they will coalesce around a photogenic pair of candidates. The majority of their party — labor unions, church-going minorities (of which there are many), hard-working and heartbroken parents of kids lost to drugs, families of pro-American veterans, cops and those who believe in Bill Clinton, never mind John Kennedy and Harry Truman — will be left behind.
Traditional Democrats will be left speechless, leaderless and party-less — sandcastles washed to sea by uninformed socialists.
Despite historical discriminators, this unchecked rush to an ill-informed, over-centralizing, oppressive ideology is exactly what happened in pre-1917 Russia, early 1930s Germany and Italy, Maoist China, 1950s North Korea, 1960s North Vietnam and Cuba, with violent leftists in Europe during the 1970s, Angola, Nicaragua and Grenada in the 1980s, and most recently the Socialist paradise of Venezuela.
Socialism invariably fails, spectacularly. Sadly, Democrats over 50 years old know this, but are not speaking up. As in all countries listed above, traditional Democrats hope what they see is not true, project their old values on new leaders, and ignore the reality around them.
Some may believe "powers that be" — such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — will sort this mess out. Others hope for the best, trust in old party labels, assume intergenerational party continuity, and think even if the worst happens, they will not be affected. Wrong. Restrictions on freedom, once begun, seldom retreat.
This is why historians say we are destined to err if we ignore history. So the Democratic Party is at an ideological tipping point. That endangers America. Americans are not socialists, progressive or otherwise. Americans are — by way of the Bill of Rights — anti-socialists. We are resilient, cussed individuals, not disposed to becoming a take-orders monolith.
Historically, we hate one thing — government or any force (including big data companies, overreaching states and runaway federal bureaucracy) telling us what to do, how to run our lives, or taking away personal choice.
Democrats are ignoring American and world history.
That is why the 2020 race is shaping up to be a landslide. Beyond President Trump’s orchestration of stunning economic results, less regulation, lower taxes, reassertion of sovereignty, national security, emphasis on free speech, second amendment rights, energy independence, and renewed moral compass, Trump is authentically defending individual liberty against accelerating centralization.
A coalition of level-headed, historically grounded, less emotional Democrats — sensitive to American "heartland" values — may yet emerge. They may show the courage to stop this horrific slide left. But time is short.
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An ideological recovery would re-center national debates — on everything from common sense health care and fiscal policy to traditional American concerns, including national, community and personal security. That would be good for America, for every American. Again, don’t count on it.
Democrats are ignoring American and world history, trying to remake us into socialists — which we will never be. That is why a Trump 2020 landslide is increasingly likely. The Democratic Party is on a beeline to nowhere, except wilderness. Obama is right.
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