See if you can guess who uttered the following sentences.
“Let me elaborate…illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple.”
“We need to crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants” and send illegals “to the back of the line behind the folks trying to come here legally.”
“We certainly do not want any more [illegal immigrants] coming in.”
If you guessed that such affirmations of enforcing current immigration law came from the so-called racist Donald Trump, you’d be wrong. Those were direct quotes from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2009, then-President Barack Obama in 2013 and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2008, respectively.
So what explains Democrat’s current refusal to even consider the common sense border protections President Trump is proposing? Given that Congress approved the construction of 650 miles of physical barriers on our southern border under the previous three presidents, including more than 130 miles when Obama was president, how is it that Nancy Pelosi can call a further extension of the border wall “immoral”?
Two apparent reasons. First, Democrats are so consumed with rage and hatred for Trump that they will do or say anything to thwart his agenda — unwilling even to negotiate and compromise on policy positions that were seen as mainstream within the Democrat Party not too long ago. In all fairness, Republicans behaved similarly in opposing most of the initiatives proposed by President Obama during his eight years in office.
The party’s base voters and donors demand such “resistance”. They have literally forced Democrat Party leadership to completely abandon many policies that they may have supported in the past in order to oppose Trump. It’s why Congressional Democrats could not even bring themselves to applaud politely during Trump’s State of the Union address when he praised the return of 600,000 manufacturing jobs to U.S. soil or the lowest unemployment rate ever for African-Americans.
In their zeal to see Trump defeated in 2020, they cannot possibly give him a single legislative victory to claim — even at the cost of displaying breathtaking hypocrisy. The drive to dump Trump is how the Democrat Party became the party of illegal immigrants, prioritizing their hopes and dreams over actual U.S. citizens.
The second is that the Democrat Party responded to the shocking defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 by moving decisively to Hillary’s left. The Party has forsaken traditional liberalism for radicalism. Many on the Left today seek a politics of radical transformation of the institutions of government away from Constitutional principles to embracing central control over ever-larger chunks of the private economy.
That’s why we’ve seen Democrat presidential hopeful Senator Kamala Harris propose the abolition of private health insurance; Democrat presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren propose a draconian wealth tax, and newly-minted House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez call for transitioning the U.S. economy to 100% renewable energy by 2030, in part by “replacing non-essential individual means of transport with high-quality and modern mass transit.”
It appears they want to take your car away.
The lurch left is unlikely to abate as young, social media-savvy voters increasingly favor socialism over capitalism and each presidential hopeful tries to out-do the next in their promises of a socialist utopia. Guaranteed jobs, paid family and medical leave, paid vacations and free college all sound great until you figure out how we’re going to pay for it all. Can democrats point to any other country where socialism has been successful long-term in improving the majority of its citizens’ lives?
Democrats are playing a dangerous game. By embracing policies to eliminate private health insurance and fossil fuels, America’s political center is up for grabs. What if independent and swing voters — even those opposed to Trump — begin to notice the stark choice between a strong economy and lower income taxes versus the loss of their private health insurance (or their car), draconian tax hikes, skyrocketing debt, energy rationing and a loss of liberty.
While I often disagree with President Trump on issues and how he behaves, thank goodness for his resolve “that America will never be a socialist country.” If the Democrats intransigence and headlong march left costs them their one shot at beating Trump next year, they’ll only have themselves to blame.
Frank Dowd IV is Chairman of Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company, a Charlotte-based manufacturer of cast iron and plastic pipe and fittings with 7 plants across the country
