The Democrats’ virtual convention is over. I’m not sure which was worse, their tacit acknowledgement that their hopes for victory rely on hatred for the current president, or the window-dressing of policies thrown up to disguise that fact.
Since Democrats’ hatred is a constant, let’s focus on their stated policies. As damaging as the former is, the latter are more so, and promise to be longer-lasting: unto the collapse of the Republic, if Democrats get their wish.
Consider security of persons and property, a foundational purpose of government. The police used to be seen by most politicians as instrumental to this security, but Democrats no longer do. Joe Biden wants to defund police forces, likening them to “a military invasion.” Before he and his minders denied he said anything of the kind.
His running mate thinks crime is deterred not by police, but when “…you put more resources into the public education system…into affordable housing, into home ownership, into access to capital for small businesses, access to health care.” Which is far from her 2010 statement that “…virtually every neighborhood wants police responding to threats or beat cops deterring crime on the street.”
We’ve seen the results of this shift from security of persons and property to truckling to anarchists and chaos merchants play out on the streets of New York, Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Encouraged by decades of grievance-nurturing by Democrat politicians and covered with the mantle of righteousness by the party’s stenographic pool in the popular media, rioters now plague many of our country’s major cities with chaotic violence. When police are no longer “responding to threats,” assaults, murders, arson, looting and other crimes escalate. Democratic administrations of major cities have failed the first test of any government.
Similar failure marks the Democrats’ plans for our nation’s foreign policy. Joe Biden says security can be had when we “remake domestic Democracy by reinforcing state education.” One supposes he means making it more uniformly leftist. We must also protect illegally resident aliens in our armed forces; increase immigration; support abortion around the world; “reengage” with Iran and North Korea on nuclear arms and of course, rally the world to combat the existential threat of climate change. Build and maintain a stronger military in light of continuing threats? Unlikely. Remember, Biden was part of the team that gave the Russians a Middle East foothold, allowed Syria to become a charnel house, paid off Iran’s death-to-America mullahs with pallets of nonsequential, small-denomination unmarked bills and reduced Libya to a country-sized brawl that claimed the lives of four American diplomats. Their secretary of state later tried to wave away that last, asking a Congressional Committee “What difference does it make?”
Economic speeches were as outré; it seemed that the years 2017-19 didn’t exist. Democrats extolled the slowest economic recovery since World War II as if it was fabulous, not remembering that in the last year of Obama’s economy GDP growth was 1.7%, and that it averaged 1.62% over his eight years in office. In contrast, the pre-coronavirus figures for the Trump economy showed an average GDP growth of 2.5%. Similarly, unemployment was 4.87% at the beginning of Trump’s term, but declined to 3.68% by the end of 2019, with the lowest unemployment rate for Black Americans ever.
The previous administration did show a knack for making money disappear. After spending $700 billion taxpayer dollars to prop up mega-banks weakened by years of sketchy lending mandated by Democrat tweaks to the Community Reinvestment Act, the Obama administration borrowed $900 billion from them and other sources to fund its “stimulus.” Joe Biden, who now boasts that he was “in charge” of this process, then showered the money on cronies, sycophants, hangers-on and a few actual enterprises – like Solyndra. The whole sorry mess was perhaps best summed up by Jesse Weed in a 2012 edition of the “American Thinker” as “Social Justice Capitalism.” Long on the former.
Joe now promises that, if you elect him, he’ll raise your taxes. His buddy Bernie Sanders promised other things: a minimum wage of $15 an hour, 12 weeks paid leave, and easy unionization for all workers. He confirmed the Democrat view that health care is a human right, and with Kamala Harris called for “Universal Health Care.” Plus full implementation of the economy-killing “Green New Deal.”
Thus the new Democratic party platform: a toxic stew of abdication of responsibility, economic fantasy, blindness and fibs, bound together by hatred for a single man. It’s pretty unhealthy.
