AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
My grandfather, Lewis N. Carrell, was a working-class man who raised a family during the Great Depression. He died in 1969 having voted a straight Democrat ticket his entire adult life.
Watching the Democratic presidential debate Wednesday night, I was struck by the idea that if Lewis Carrell had somehow been raised from the dead in time to watch with me, he would not recognize the Democratic Party as represented by that gaggle of leftist radicals on the stage. The Democratic Party of 2019 bears little resemblance to the Democrats of Lewis Carrell’s day.
“But we’re talking 50 years ago,” you’re saying. “Things evolve. They change.”
OK, fine. So, then, what about comparison even to the much more recent Democratic Party that elected Bill Clinton? This gang of Democrats is radical even by those standards.
Two examples: abortion and immigration.
When my grandfather was alive, abortion was a topic not suitable for polite company. By 1996, when Clinton was running for re-election, abortion was a nearly unavoidable topic. But even so, Clinton still said that abortion should be, “…safe, legal and rare.”
Fast forward to Wednesday night. The Democrats were elbowing each other out of the way to stake out the farthest left position on the subject. Democrat views on abortion go to places that were unimaginable even as recently as Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign.
Today, if you’re a Democrat and want to have any hope of being the nominee, it’s not enough to simply support unrestricted abortion on demand. You have to zealously promote it. Safe, legal and rare be damned. To this group of Dems, abortion is the inalienable right – if not the duty – of any pregnant woman right up until the very moment of natural birth – and beyond. It gets even more crazy. Texas’s own Julian Castro reminded us that we must provide state funds for the abortions of “female trans people.” (You can’t make this stuff up.)
Moving to immigration; whatever opinions Lewis Carrell had on the subject, it is absolutely certain that none of them included completely open borders. He had enough common sense to understand that you can’t let hundreds of thousands of poor, unvetted migrants just stream into the country every month. No such common sense among the Dems on the debate stage Wednesday, however. To Dems seeking the presidency, lawlessness is apparently preferable to even a semblance of order.
There’s so much more if only we had time.
Suffice that the Democratic Party of my grandfather was led by the likes of Harry Truman, Sam Rayburn, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson – all men of the left but substantial men, nonetheless.
The leader of today’s Democratic Party isn’t running for president and isn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The de facto leader of today’s Democrats is a 29-year old barmaid turned Congresswoman named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is the Grand Marshal of the Radical Left Crazy Parade – and all those Dems on stage Wednesday night are proudly marching in it.
Lewis Carrell would be appalled.
Yes Paul, and 99.9% of all our grandfathers would be appalled, whether Democrat or Republican! The obvious question is how in the world did our wonderful country devolve to this extent? In my mind, there is not a single answer, but rather an accumulation of forces that have appealed to our most base instincts. The illegal immigration issue has certainly been a factor, as people who are now influencing politics are coming here to take advantage of the largess of our welfare system, cannot speak our language, and have little or no skills or education. The Democrats welcome this type of immigrant who most likely will vote for their pandering promises, as their policies are repugnant to most patriotic and hard-working citizens. Our poor public education system perpetuates the inability of many of our citizens to make informed choices. Our “higher education” system has purposely been saturated with left-leaning professors, who have a tremendous negative effect on graduates/future leaders. So many of our youth are self-absorbed and open to receiving benefits that they have not earned. In a nutshell, Santa Claus would be the landslide winner as the Democrat nominee for president in 2020. I could go on, but not enough space or time, and too depressing. If any one of these clowns is elected to lead our country, it will be a sure sign that we have reached the point of no return. It will also be proof positive that Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky have successfully demonstrated how you take over a country without firing a shot.
Whattya make of Mayor Pete?
My grandfather definitely would not have understood Mayor Pete.
Sorry if I was ambiguous:
What do YOU make of Mayor Pete?
I think he’s a guy with enough practical world experience to know better that is pandering to the party’s increasingly far left base. I say again, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is actually the one in charge.
DO tell how you arrived at this assessment. Knowing you to be as Fox News-susceptible as you’ve demonstrated, I assume you saw his Fox Townhall broadcast. And you saw him on the Thursday night debate. What else? Interviews, position papers such as candidates post online?
Go read the risible, left wing, boilerplate claptrap on his website and you’ll see with absolute clarity how I arrived at this assessment. His resumé as a Naval officer suggests that he might know better. Clearly he doesn’t.
Couldn’t have said it better Paul….. or Ron
It is definitely not a coincidence that the Democrat logo is the jackass! Considering this present herd of candidates, I must extend my sincere apologies to all jackasses. Maybe they should just drop the intro, because they “don’t know jack”!
I am 65 and my father was definitely a democrat he even got me to vote for Jimmy Carter. I never went to college I did get my high school diploma I have work hard all my life but what I have no one give me and my father would not recognize the democratic party today. PS Jimmy Carter was the only Democrat I ever voted for. Everyone is allowed one mistake.
My 93-year old mother-in-law has been a Democrat all her life. Her husband climbed poles for Dallas Power and Light. She and my father-in-law were both active in unions and Democratic politics. She still watches MSNBC and votes Democratic. Her daughter my wife voted for Obama twice. My wife voted for Trump in 2016. My wife is convinced that the Democratic party has left her behind.
Now that I’ve looked-up “risible…”
You refer to: https://peteforamerica.com/issues/
“Improving our VA health care system by increasing access to and quality of care, and rejecting privatization of the VA?” NOT good?
That “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan makes a Medicare-type public option available on the exchange and invites people to buy into it. NOT FREE, “buy into it.”
“Our infrastructure is crumbling, and investments there unlock good jobs, and drive economic growth.” Otherwise, if you’re heading to Michigan, bring bottled water, and avoid bridges.
And “Pass strict regulations on predatory lenders” and “Strengthen antitrust standards:” Let’s have none of that, eh?
Oh, come on. You can do better than this.
Let’s take them one by one.
“…rejecting privatization of the VA.” No one is suggesting that the VA be “privatized.” But allowing veterans to get health care from private providers paid for by the VA is a VERY good idea and is, in fact, the only one that has a chance of freeing veterans from the stultifying bureaucracy that forces them to wait months or years for care. Rejecting that simple, cost effective reform? No, NOT good. Not good at all.
On “Medicare for All Who Want It” you conveniently left off the rest of the line on good ol’ Mayor Pete’s issue page that goes on to read, “…as a pathway to Medicare for all.” In the ensuing text he talks about universal health care and the rest of the liberal health care gibberish, all of which will bankrupt future generations while having exactly zero chance of working in a country of 320 million flung across an entire continent. (For a thumbnail preview of universal health care in the USA, please refer to the VA or visit you local DMV.)
There is no doubt that roads, bridges, tunnels, etc., etc. all across the fruited plain stand in need of attention ranging from urgent to desperate. No one argues otherwise. Which is why the country cannot afford the Green New Deal, universal health care or the importation of millions of poor, uneducated, low-skilled illegal immigrants who will place unbearable burdens on public institutions ranging from county hospitals to local schools to police departments. If Mayor Pete (and to be fair Donald Trump) really want to address crumbling infrastructure, they will do what business owners and CEOs and families routinely do. They will manage costs and prioritize spending. You can’t give away health care, education, housing and food and hope to have money left to fix roads and bridges. Liberals (and way too many so-called Republicans, to again be fair) think you can — and they run around buying votes saying that you can. But you can’t.
And, finally, as to “strict regulations on predatory lenders” all I have to say is that you libs just love “strict regulations.” From such we get gems like Dodd-Frank, which was supposed to solve the problem of ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks but has instead simply entrenched them at the expense of community banks that have been bought up and consolidated due to regulatory costs that a small, independent bank can’t afford. You get the Community Reinvestment Act, which so distorted the mortgage lending market as to make the housing meltdown of 2008 inevitable. Drill down into the economic crises of the past 30 years and you are likely to find at the root “strict” market-distorting regulatory policy.
So, I stand by my original response. I think Mayor Pete is a regulation-issue lib with a resumé that suggests that he should know better.
To quote a former boss, “I’ll answer your last question first…”
So you’re OK with payday lenders?
Do you accept advertising from “check-cashing stores?”
Now, scroll-up to the generalities in your-paragraph-above…
Just imagine all we COULD afford if we hadn’t blown twelve zeroes in the Iraq fiasco, and all we’re about to waste if sociopath John Bolton gets his way in Iran and Venezuela…or if this phony tax cut didn’t just add a trillion to the Trump deficit. Meantime, let’s find some ‘Works dough to fix the streets in DC after those tanks roll.
Scroll-up to your recitation of the standard “Medicare for All” retort: WE KNOW The Healthcare-Industrial Complex to be big advertisers. Those ad dollars tend to go to network TV more than local radio, but YOU KNOW those ads aren’t free. WHY SHOULDN’T the private healthcare sector middlemen compete side-by-side with buy-in Medicare on exchanges? Medicare processed a billion claims last year. It’s not an experiment. When you’re of-age, you’ll appreciate it.
All-the-way up-top: As for the VA: Not-having-worn the uniform, as Mayor Pete did, you and I can sympathize, but not empathize, with conditions candidate Trump said he’d address “on Day One.”
AND WOULD Republicans like Ike and Nelson Rockefeller and Gerald Ford even recognize what the party of Trump has become, now populated by invertebrates like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz? We know how Bush Senior felt, and W.