You need only to have paid attention for the excruciating, exhausting, emotionally draining 24 hours of Wednesday, November 20, 2019 to understand all you really need to know about today’s Democratic Party.
A two-headed monster reared its head, first in the light of day and then after dark, in a memorably horrific wake-up call on the state of one of our two major political parties.
The Democrats’ breathtaking contempt for the unwashed masses, their disdain for the will of regular workaday Americans was on vivid, 4K display as they proceeded to punish the deplorables who voted in unacceptable fashion, first with the attempted removal of the president they elected and then by proposing to topple and transform the nation they voted to restore.
Indeed, in the space of a mere 24 hours, the Democrats fully unmasked themselves and revealed a remarkably simple – and equally frightening – agenda to place before the American people in the 2020 elections.
Impeachment and socialism
After testimony by a rogues' gallery of diplomatic and political witnesses, the particular testimony of EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland was most breathlessly trumpeted by the full array of Democratic cheerleaders in the elite media as the latest grave threat to Trump. Like the other witnesses produced by the majority, it initially appeared to the naked eye that Sondland’s qualified accusation of a quid pro quo made things look bleaker for the president. And yet, his testimony and his credibility began to disintegrate as the day progressed, along with the Democrats’ chances of convincing even a single Republican to support impeachment.
Beyond even the fact of zero Republican support, proof of the Democrats’ own realization that there is no chance Trump will be convicted and removed from office was Schiff’s opening statement on Wednesday, when he headlined the same charge used in the wake of the failed Russia collusion hoax: obstruction. Schiff knows full well that there was no crime in Trump’s actions, only political fodder for the voters to evaluate. So he is forced to make a claim - obstruction of justice - which has now replaced patriotism as the last refuge of scoundrels.
Of course, that was after the Democrats convened focus groups to determine what accusation would increase the political resonance of a process the American people have tuned out. So they dropped the term quid pro quo and went straight to bribery, apparently concluding that even the term extortion is insufficiently sensational.
Nowhere in this process has anyone bothered to view this transaction by Trump and Zelensky through the lens of who Trump is and how he operates. As a businessman extraordinaire, he famously prides himself on the art of the deal. He negotiates everything, tries to squeeze the last ounce of blood from across the table, unwilling to settle for the safe victory that would satisfy most conventional politicians. He was willing to provide the anti-tank Javelins which President Obama was unwilling to supply but wanted Zelensky to “do the right thing,” as he told Sondland. As in all negotiations, both sides give and take. But Trump ultimately provided exactly what was promised, even as his negotiating conditions were not met.
Hello, this is how every bit of foreign aid has always been provided - with conditions. Does anyone believe the many beneficiaries of America’s largesse receive a blank check? Trump is simply more bold - and more demanding. He refuses to work off the State Department/intelligence community script, and who can blame him? These are the same people who have collaborated to weaken, even cripple, his presidency from the jump. Trump’s “irregular channel” is based on his deep, well-earned distrust of the permanent bureaucracy.
This impeachment theater has revealed that even Democrats agree that Ukraine has long been one of the most corrupt nations on Earth. And the government in place before Zelensky was overtly anti-Trump during the 2016 campaign, dredging up dirt on Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort and making inflammatory anti-Trump statements publicly. How is it illegitimate to demand an investigation of not just historically widespread corruption in that nation, but the obvious issue of the former vice president’s son getting millions of dollars and a board seat on the country’s largest energy concern for which he had no qualifications? And then the prosecutor investigating that company was fired at the behest of Vice President Biden - and there is no reason to investigate - really? Media attention has conveniently focused on Biden the 2020 candidate and ignored Biden as Obama’s point man on Ukraine.
And oh, by the way, if Trump is a Russian agent, a notion still embraced by Trump-deranged leftists, why in heaven’s name would he be providing lethal aid to a nation attacked by Russia? Obama’s pronounced denial of such aid was paired with a promise to defend Ukraine if Russia invaded, but such defense was never provided as the Russians overran and annexed Crimea and then moved on the remainder of Ukraine. Does anyone actually believe Ukraine is not better off now than under Obama? None of the Democrats’ star witnesses dared make such a claim, even under intense questioning.
In the category of stuff you couldn’t make up, the uniformed officer and native Ukrainian presented as another star witness for the Democrats, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, revealed that he had on more than one occasion been offered the position of Defense Minister for Ukraine. Seriously. Is this not particularly creepy - a high ranking American military officer being recruited to head Ukrainian defenses? Vindman most perfectly betrayed the entitled mindset of the encrusted foreign policy establishment when he deemed Trump’s investigation demand “unacceptable.” As if it were up to him to decide. NSC official Fiona Hill followed on Thursday by saying, “Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined." Vindman and Hill are part and parcel of an unelected foreign policy and intelligence establishment filled with lifers who truly believe they, not the elected President, are the repositories of wisdom. They, not the elected President, are the ones who know best. And they, not the elected President, should be deciding what America's foreign policy ought to be.
When day finally, unmercifully, turned to night, the show moved from Capitol Hill to Atlanta, where Elizabeth Warren kicked off the socialist portion of the Democrats’ agenda with another of her famous plans. But this time it was one which might actually draw widespread praise. On the heels of Sondland’s testimony, the on-again, off-again frontrunner declared that she plans to discontinue the tradition of awarding ambassadorships to major donors.
Unfortunately, the show then quickly descended into another all-too-predictable spectacle: hatred of Trump, love of government.
Young Pete Buttigieg, latest frontrunner in the initial contest in Iowa, asserted that impeachment, the very definition of a political process, should be “beyond politics.” Kamala Harris, in a death spiral for months now, labeled the Trump administration a criminal enterprise and pledged to force employers to provide six months paid family leave. Amy Klobuchar called for a constitutional amendment to overturn a Supreme Court case (Citizens United) - I’m confused, too - while Bernie Sanders demanded the prosecution of energy company executives and upped the ante - or did he lower it? - by declaring that the lifespan of the earth as we know it - 12 years according to AOC earlier this year - has now, months later, been reduced to eight years (maybe nine). Semi-frontrunner Biden looked burned out, clueless, running on empty, inexplicably raising the issue of his centrality to the Ukraine imbroglio as if that somehow advantages him, and then resorting to empty talk about his electability and embarrassingly affected bravado. The remaining candidates like entrepreneur Andrew Yang and billionaire Tom Steyer left not a single footprint in the sand. Tulsi Gabbard was gratuitously attacked by Harris for daring to oppose our involvement in Syria and foreign involvements generally, cementing the Democrat’s newfound and inexplicable posture as the party of war.
In a day designed to stir the blood of the party’s rabid-dog base, the Democrats managed to scare off the very voters they will need to win back the White House. And they seem not to even realize it. Indeed, it was the crushing losses in the heartland that sank Hillary Clinton in 2016, and the Democrats’ response is … impeachment and socialism.
Do they actually believe reversing the outcome of a presidential election and tearing down the foundations of a free market economy will appeal to the disaffected millions who abandoned them the last time around?
The voters will surely ask themselves what the Democrats have accomplished with the majority granted them in the House of Representatives. They campaigned on a legislative agenda, which included working with the president on the pressing issues of prescription drug prices, infrastructure, and even health care. But other than a long-forgotten bill to tweak the criminal justice system, they have fulfilled none of their promises. Meanwhile, the president has delivered on the most significant of all his promises - a robust economy, with millions of new jobs, record low unemployment - and peace. Yes, peace and prosperity are no longer promises, but facts.
Which record do you think the voters will prefer?
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Read more from Tim Donner.
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