The yakkers who guide our political discourse have long argued the Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization. The Washington Post refreshed this point when President Donald Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference recently.
“Trump’s ownership of the GOP was on vivid display,” observed the Post, adding that “acquiescence to Trump is now the defining trait of the Republican Party.” A disgruntled GOP strategist even ripped the contemporary GOP as the “Trump cult.”
The reason is that Republican voters and lawmakers, including former Trump critics who’ve come around, readily dismiss his sordid past, gaffes, policy stumbles and general bad-boy behavior because they like what he’s done.
But to its credit, the Post also pointed out that the anti-Trump cult, otherwise known as the Democratic Party, is itself increasingly straight-jacketed by outsiders turned insiders.
Almost coinciding with its story of Trump at CPAC, a Post article suggested congressional Democrats are quickly becoming the wholly owned subsidiary of AOC, as in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the admitted socialist freshman House member from New York.
During a closed-door airing of the grievances on Feb. 28, some Democratic “centrists” — a species many of us believe is as rare as the Northern hairy-nosed wombat — griped about the radicalism championed by AOC and other new Democratic darlings who hold the media spellbound. These “moderates” believe, with justification, that nonsense like the Green New Deal, open borders and exorbitant tax rates on upper income Americans will hurt them in 2020.
Twenty-six of these alleged centrists — 22 of whom actually flipped Trump-leaning districts last year — triggered the showdown by voting with Republicans on a gun measure.
The overarching bill, which concerned background checks, passed along party lines. But GOP lawmakers got, with the help of these Democrats, an amendment that mandates gun dealers to notify ICE if an illegal immigrant wants to buy a gun.
Nonetheless, the Post reported AOC threatened Joe McCarthy-style to put the rebels “on a list” to garner primary challengers in 2020. Speaker Nancy Pelosi then sided with the AOC wing. She lauded the “courage” of those whose votes supported ICE not learning when illegals buy weapons. And Pelosi admonished the Dirty Two Dozen: “We are either a team or we’re not, and we have to make that decision.”
According to the Post, the AOC-led Democrats “argue that the party has been too timid, caving to Republican pressure and failing to inspire voters with calls for sweeping change.”
Of course, we saw time and time and time again when those mealy-mouthed, malleable Democrats marched in lockstep with Trump, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan on matters like cutting taxes, cracking down on people who entered our country illegally or repealing Obamacare. Insert eyeroll here.
The Post found John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster in Alabama, to try to shore up the centrists.
Anzalone said his data show Democrats aren’t “enthusiastically liberal.”
“There is, without a doubt, a myth that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez somehow represents the narrative of Democratic primary voters in the country,” he told the Post.
Not sure if Anzalone is trying to convince Post readers or himself with that comment. Either way, it sounds hollow.
Captured by the telegenic audacity of AOC and other Democratic “fresh faces” on Capitol Hill — like Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and to a degree Sen. Kamala Harris — our swooning national media will promote their leftist agenda at every opportunity.
Thus, much to Anzalone’s chagrin, they look like the leadership. And the San Francisco Kid’s willingness to stifle the “moderates” and urge them to join the “team” shows Pelosi understands the risk of not accommodating AOC and Co.
Thus, Democrats have a bigger problem than does the GOP “cult,” which no matter what will be forever cast as racist, sexist, homophobic bigots — whether the party leader is a Trump, a Bush, a Gingrich, or a Reagan.
Democrats want to sell themselves and their ideas as mainstream, inclusive and broadly appealing. Yet the Pelosi-AOC slapdown of the moderates shows who’s in charge, and the party’s continued leftward drift.
Thus, just know that if Democrats are willing to squash those who want to be a moderating influence on their leaders’ increasing radicalism, they have no incentive to seek common ground with Republicans, or to listen to the millions of Middle Americans the GOP represents.
Bill Thompson (bill.thompson@theledger.com) is the editorial page editor of The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Democratic Party being overtaken by AOC and her radical cult