Happy Valentine's Day: The Left Flirts With Totalitarianism

Happy Valentine’s Day!  For the 24^th year in a row, I will not spend any money buying presents for a significant other. I still plan on using the occasion to make money, which will in turn make me more attractive to the ladies down the road, and wear red.  A lot of the money I have saved could pay for a very romantic Valentine’s Day evening in the future.

Unfortunately for the families of those who lost loved ones in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Valentine’s Day does not trigger the same sense of happiness that it does for most Americans, as the massacre unfolded exactly one year ago today.  As for me, Valentine’s Day took on a slightly darker meaning back in 2005; when I lost my paternal grandmother.  Looking at the bright side, at least she got to spend Valentine’s Day with her valentine, my grandfather that I never got to meet, for the first time in 16 years. 

In high school, I once had a teacher who dismissed Valentine’s Day as “capitalism at its finest.”  He may have a point; for the past several weeks, commercials for Pajamagram, Shari’s Berries, Pro Flowers, and Adore Me, to name a few, have showered the airwaves as these companies attempt to offer enticing deals to those hoping to use the holiday as an excuse to reignite sparks in their marriages.  I have also heard of a breadsticks bouquet courtesy of Olive Garden; that sounds like the most delicious Valentine’s Day present I can think of.

In elementary school, however, Valentine’s Day seemed like socialism at its finest; at least in retrospect.  Considering the fact that I (meaning my parents) had to buy valentines for everyone in the class, that kind of diminished the meaning of the holiday.  After all, if you had to give everyone the same thing, then no one feels special.  But, at the same time, no one felt left out. The teachers obviously saw everyone feeling included as the most important aspect of Valentine’s Day even if it left us ill-prepared for the heartbreak that would surely follow when we experienced the gut punch of rejection for the first time.  Then again, can anyone really prepare someone for the worst feeling in the world? 

Speaking of socialism, it looks like the left has used Valentine’s Day as an excuse to declare its love for big government.  Last week, freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled her proposal for a “Green New Deal.”  Leaving aside the fact that it would probably make more sense to introduce a proposal supposedly concerned with fixing the environment around Earth Day, the “Green New Deal” should frighten every American who cherishes the time-honored principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

In addition to attempting to placate the desires of the most radical environmentalists, the “Green New Deal” basically represents a glimpse into the Democratic Party platform of the very near future.  Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez had a fact sheet containing frequently asked questions about her behemoth proposal on her website but she quickly took it down.  Fortunately, The Heartland Institute as well as the Wayback Machine managed to get their hands on a copy of it so the American people would have the opportunity to learn what the Democrats really stand for.

The “Green New Deal” calls for abolishing fossil fuels within the next 12 years; or as the deal’s proponents like to say, making them obsolete. The proposal calls for the government to support those “unwilling to work.”  Between that and the some of the Democrats’ plan to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent or higher, it seems like the left wants to remove all the incentives to actually work.  The proposal also advocates for the development of a massive high speed rail system “at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” Air travel allows me to travel from Rhode Island to Disney World (roughly 1,200 miles) in three hours; unless the high speed rails have speeds north of 400 miles per hour, then they definitely don’t meet the definition of progress.

Let’s put this into perspective. California Governor Gavin Newsom, hardly a moderate by any stretch of the imagination, cancelled plans for a high speed rail that would connect the state’s two liberal epicenters; Los Angeles and San Francisco.  The distance between the two cities ends up taking six hours by car and an hour by flight.  The high speed rail would have enabled people to travel from LA to San Francisco in 2 hours and 40 minutes at the very least and it would cost twice as much to use a high speed rail as it would to fly, according to former California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.   In other words, the high speed rail would allow travelers to make the same trip for twice the cost and nearly three times the travel time. According to DeVore, “planners were forced to admit that instead of being operational by 2022 and costing $33 billion, the effort would consume $77 to $98 billion and take years longer to finish.”  If a liberal like Newsom deems a high speed rail running 520 miles too expensive, then imagine the price tag at the national level.

At first, far-left Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii seemed enthusiastic about the Green New Deal until she noticed that the Green New Deal probably wouldn’t serve her state’s interests unless underwater railroads become a reality.  Nonetheless, she still remains on the list of cosponsors. All of this talk about abolishing air travel makes me think Bette Midler had a point when she worried about going back “60 years,” although when she made that point, she had abortion in mind.

The “Green New Deal” attracted nearly 70 cosponsors in addition to the unapologetic socialist Ocasio-Cortez.  Most of the Democrats represent far-left districts but a few of these Democrats may have committed career-ending suicides by embracing a proposal so wildly out of whack with their swing or Republican-leaning districts and/or districts with industrial heritages.  Representative Brian Higgins, who represents the former industrial powerhouse of Buffalo; Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, who represents a district containing the outermost suburbs of New York City that President Trump narrowly carried; Representative Joe Courtney, who represents an Eastern Connecticut district that President Trump narrowly lost; Representative Andy Levin, who represents a Michigan district that swung towards President Trump in 2016; and Representative Peter DeFazio, who represents a Southern Oregon-based district that President Trump narrowly lost; come to mind. 

If the policies of the past quarter-century or even half century have put the industrial economy into a coma, then the “Green New Deal” will surely finish the job and withdraw it from life support.  The “Green New Deal” also means bad news for states with thriving oil and natural gas economies such as Pennsylvania and North Dakota. On the bright side, the “Green New Deal” should make it much easier for Republicans to carry the Midwest in the 2020 Presidential election and most subsequent elections.

In addition to declaring war on airplanes and fossil fuels, the Green New Deal also attempts to turn cows into the enemy of the people by arguing that their farting harms the environment.  The Green New Deal also promotes, if not mandates, healthy food, an idea that has the anti-Big Gulp Michael Bloomberg’s fingerprints all over it; despite the fact that he probably dismisses the Green New Deal as a “pie in the sky” idea at the macro level. Presidential candidate Cory “Spartacus” Booker has gone even further, arguing that “this planet simply can’t sustain billions of people consuming industrially produced agriculture.”  In other words, the vegan Booker has effectively declared war on meat.

The “Green New Deal” goes well beyond environmentalism and the fact sheet describes it as “a massive transformation of our society with clear goals and a timeline.” The initiative promises to “build on FDR’s second bill of rights” by guaranteeing every American “a job with a family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security,” “high-quality education, including higher education and trade schools,” as well as “high-quality health care,” which will probably look something like “Medicare for all.”  In other words, if you like your health care plan, you will definitely not be able to keep your healthcare plan; assuming that you haven’t lost it already.  Unless, of course, you get Medicare or Medicaid.

Perhaps the most eye-popping part of the proposal calls for the government to “upgrade or replace every building in US for state of the art energy efficiency.”  Think about that.  The United States currently has over 300 million people living here.  Think of all the private residences in the country.  Keep in mind that some Americans have multiple residences.  That does not include all of the public buildings; churches, schools, hospitals, restaurants, offices, stores, and libraries.  Most Americans, including myself, see our country’s $20 trillion in debt as a huge problem.  This “Green New Deal” will definitely make that problem worse.

It might seem like a shock that the “Green New Deal” would have such a wide appeal.  The document claims that 92 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans support the Green New Deal.  That comes across as quite hard to believe.  The “Green New Deal” does have a base of support: millennials.  Polling shows millennials much more sympathetic to socialism than the older generations; with 51 percent of Americans under 30 viewing socialism in a favorable light.  No wonder so many young people supported Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, in the 2016 Democratic Party Presidential primaries.

Nonetheless, the Democrats will soon experience the burn of unrequited love, a feeling I know all too well, as long as Republicans control the White House and the Senate.  However, it looks like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has given the Democrats a bit of hope that they can live happily ever after with their true love, totalitarianism, announcing that he will allow a floor vote on the proposal.  In the Senate, the “Green New Deal” has attracted the support of 12 of the 47 Senate Democrats.  Most of these Senators come from blue states that President Trump lost by double digits; Amy Klobuchar presents the only exception.  Klobuchar, a newly announced 2020 Presidential candidate, represents Minnesota; a state that President Trump narrowly lost.  It seems unlikely, if not downright impossible, that the “Green New Deal” will make it to the President’s desk.  The “Green New Deal” will likely not receive support from a single Republican in either chamber; even the most moderate Republicans, such as Susan Collins. The #GreenNewDisaster began trending on Twitter after Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey first unveiled the “Green New Deal” last week. McConnell has apparently made the calculation that it will help Republicans to have all of the Democratic candidates for President, as well as every Democratic Senator up for re-election next year, to go on the record as either supporting or opposing the “Green New Deal.” 


This Valentine’s Day, the left has made its admiration for totalitarianism perfectly clear.  Republicans and conservatives should keep this in mind when Election Day 2020 comes around and give the Democrats a “Dear John” letter.