So Who's Running for President Anyway?

During an appearance in Missouri at the Veterans of Foreign Wars annual convention, President Trump touted the confirmation of his new Veterans’ Affairs Secretary, Robert Wilkie, whom the Senate confirmed earlier this week by an 86-9 vote.  He told the crowd to take a look at the “no” votes, referring to them as “super-lefts, who are running against me in two years.”

All of the “no” votes for Wilkie came from Democrats.  At least five of the nine candidates have established themselves as 2020 Presidential hopefuls.  Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts all voted against Wilkie, as did Senator Dianne Feinstein of Califiornia, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon; none of whom seem to have presidential ambitions.  Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who also voted against the nomination, may emerge as a dark horse in the 2020 race, as the lone United States Senator to support Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. 

The 2020 Presidential hopefuls have also made the most extreme comments with regards to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  Senator Elizabeth Warren declared that opponents to the Kavanaugh nomination are “on the moral side of history.”  It comes across at quite strange that a woman who opposes Kavanaugh’s nomination solely to preserve the nationwide legality of abortion, one of the most immoral procedures known to man would declare herself “on the moral side of history.” According to Cory Booker, who appears to have a little bit of trouble with grammar, “there is no bystanders.  You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong or you are fighting against it.”  Many of the other Presidential contenders had previously joined protesters on the steps of the Supreme Court on the night President Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination, including Warren, Sanders, and Gillibrand.  Pretty soon, liberals may end up declaring  Kavanaugh the most imminent national security threat, replacing climate change.

This extremism might seem startling but it shouldn’t considering how far left the Democratic base has veered.  The far left seems to think that resorting to violence and destructive behavior will lead more people to sympathize with their policies.  It doesn’t.  A vandal destroyed President Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a pickaxe.  So much for the idea of “when they go low, we go high.”  This comes not long after George Lopez urinated on the President’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Last year, Makenna Greenwald, a student at the University of Wyoming, became a social media sensation after she stopped to clean the President’s star, posting on Twitter “Stopped to clean @realDonaldTrump Hollywood Star. Nothing but respect for MY President.  #RaisedRight.”  In response to the vandalism that took place earlier this week, Greenwald tweeted out “Can’t win em all.  I’m sorry @realDonaldTrump I did my best.”  Another Twitter user suggested “Well it looks like it’s time for a return trip to LA @makenna_mg.”

In addition to President Trump, Education Secretary Betsy Devos, the dartboard of America’s teachers’ unions, has also found herself a victim of vandalism. A vandal untied her yacht from its dock in Huron, Ohio, causing the boat to hit a dock, thereby leading to scratches costing between $5,000 and $10,000 in damage.     

Speaking of left-wing violence, Massachusetts Independent Senate Candidate Shiva Ayyadurai, who dubs himself “the real Indian running against the fake Indian,” faced assault at the hands of a supporter of his opponent, “Goofy” Elizabeth Warren.  The altercation took place at a rally for Warren in Western Massachusetts, where Ayyadurai shouted at Warren’s supporters with a bullhorn. 74-year-old Paul Solovay now faces assault and battery charges after shoving the bullhorn in Ayyadurai’s face, giving him a bloody lip.  He also referred to the Indian-American as a racist.  Ayyadurai initially entered the race as a Republican but later decided to run as an Independent, describing the Massachusetts Republican Party as “irrelevant” and “in collusion with the Democrats.”  Ayyadurai will face off against Warren and whoever ends up winning the September 4 Republican Primary in the general election, where Warren starts off as a heavy favorite.           

Not every candidate hoping to take on President Trump in the 2020 Presidential election has the luxury of relying on the bully pulpit that accompanies the role of United States Senator.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for example, has to rely solely on hyperbolic statements in order to win the support of the Democratic base.  He has made these types of comments before; most recently by urging the Trump Administration to deport him.  But before he can achieve his obvious dream of taking on President Trump, he must first secure re-election to a third term as Governor of the State of New York.  He may end up with at least three challengers to his left in the general election, including actress Cynthia Nixon, who has made abolishing ICE a central tenet of her campaign.  Nixon hopes to oust Cuomo in the Democratic Primary, which will take place on September 11, but will likely seek to run on the George Soros-backed “Working Families” ticket should she fail to capture the Democratic nomination. 

Perhaps keeping this in mind, Cuomo told a crowd in Puerto Rico that the Trump administration is “on a jihad to deport as many people as they can who they believe are not in the United States legally.”  Cuomo’s comments drew the ire of a Muslim activist in his home state, who shared the Governor’s contempt for the Trump Administration’s immigration policies but complained that his use of the term “jihad” “only perpetuates the Islamophobic trope that acts of violence are somehow a Muslim invention.”  Another Muslim activist went even further, suggesting that Cuomo should have used the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe President Trump’s policies.  Governor Cuomo went on a jihad of his own four years ago, when he suggested that “extreme conservatives” who believe in the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and the Second Amendment “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”  During his trip to Puerto Rico, Cuomo also complained that “this administration is on a crusade against people who they do not consider original Americans, which is specious and hypocritical at best, because unless you’re a member of a Native American tribe, then you’re really an immigrant to the United States, right?”  Wrong.  Cuomo’s statement proves that liberals see absolutely no distinction between legal and illegal immigration, the Trump administration has no animus against people who immigrated to the country legally.     

Cuomo and all of the other open borders zealots fail to realize that we live in a different economy than when his ancestors (and my ancestors) first came to the United States. The hollowing out of Upstate New York as a result of deindustrialization should make this quite obvious.  America does not need an influx of low-skilled workers, as technology renders the jobs they would normally take obsolete; with one exception.  The Democratic Party, on the other hand, needs as many low-skilled immigrants as possible in order to build a permanent power base, as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich eloquently points out in a new op-ed.     

In order to remain competitive in the increasingly left-wing Democratic Party, the Democratic candidates for President will have to respond to the demands of the people who assault Senate candidates with bullhorns, vandalize Betsy Devos’s boat, destroy President Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, demand open borders, and seek to silence anyone with an opposing point of view.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke of this group of people at a Turning Point USA high school conference, as he discussed how “some schools are doing everything they can to create a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes.”   

In recent public appearances, the 2020 Presidential contenders proudly showed off their left-wing bonafides.  Kirsten Gillibrand has repeatedly called for the abolition of ICE in the wake of Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory over Rep. Joe Crowley, most recently at an appearance at “OZY Fest.”  With 2020 still more than two years away, Gillibrand made it perfectly clear what Democrats want to do should they manage to take control of the House and Senate after this year’s midterm elections: “So when we flip the House and flip the Senate, I think the first thing we should do is deal with the children who have been separated from their families at the border. I think we should get rid of ICE.”

Not everyone on the left has cheered the Democratic Party’s leftward trajectory.  In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman urged the residents of New York’s 14^th Congressional District to vote for the ousted Congressman Joe Crowley, who will appear on the ballot as the endorsed candidate of the Working Families Party despite the fact that he has already endorsed Ocasio-Cortez.  Lieberman urged Crowley to resume campaigning, warning that “the policies Ms. Ocasio-Cortez advocates are so far from the mainstream, her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems.” Lieberman knows a thing or two about third-party bids; he lost his primary as he sought re-election in 2006, but ended up running as an independent and emerging victorious in the general election thanks to support from Republicans and Independents.

 

When keeping in mind that the Democratic Party’s new base consists of college students conditioned to love socialism and banning hate speech in addition to illegal immigrants, Lieberman and other Americns should not be that surprised about the Party’s radical new policy positions.  If a Democratic politician ever makes a reasonable statement; that person almost certainly has no desire to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for President in 2020.  If a politician makes an outrageous statement, then President Trump should immediately brand them with a nickname; as he will have a very good chance of facing off against them in the United States of America’s 58^th quadrennial Presidential election.