Brace yourselves, America: This is not your grandparents’ Democratic Party.
It isn’t the party of John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton or the late Sen. Bill Proxmire (D-Wis.), who used to poke fun at ridiculous government waste. JFK, after all, pushed through tax cuts, and Clinton oversaw bipartisan welfare reform. This new crop of Democrats have never met a spending bill they didn’t like or a bloated fraud-riddled entitlement program they don’t support.
It is a radical new group that has taken over the U.S. Congress, led by people who hate successful businesses, want to confiscate your wealth, see corruption in prosperity (but not in big government) and have no clue what has historically made our nation thrive.
The liberal media is working overtime to convince us otherwise. A headline from The Economist blares: “The blue wave was powered by moderate Democrats.” Third Way claims: “Moderates Made Democratic Majorities.” And The New York Times highlighted: “Moderate Democrats increased their numbers,” explaining that “Their victories in competitive or Republican-leaning states and districts have fundamentally altered the balance of power among Democrats in Congress.”
But just because a bunch of Democrats were elected to seats in red or purple states, it does not mean that they are moderates.
Take Annie Andrews, who beat Darline Graham to win a Senate seat in deep-red South Carolina. Andrews is a doctor who in the past has supported giving minors irreversibly life-altering puberty blockers and other treatments to assist with their gender transitions — a practice disapproved of by all sane adults. Is she a “moderate”?
Or how about Josh Turek, the new senator from red-state Iowa, who supports eliminating right-to-work laws and wants to jack up the federal minimum wage? Or Abdul El-Sayed, the Medicare-for-all enthusiast elected to represent Michigan in the Senate?
Are they “moderates?”
Consider who is now ascending to positions of power.
Come January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will head the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Warren is a die-hard progressive who hates the banks she is about to oversee. Why? Because her father, whom she calls “daddy” in her memoir, “A Fighting Chance,” couldn’t hold a job and almost caused the family to lose their home to a supposedly heartless bank. In a heart-rending scene, her mother is forced to go to work in order to pay the mortgage. It was clearly a defining moment for Warren.
On the campaign trail, she describes “Big Tech CEOs, Wall Street executives, and giant corporations” as “ripping off the American people to make themselves richer.” She accused oil companies of price-gouging when prices went up, then claimed the cost of Thanksgiving turkeys rose (when Joe Biden was in the White House) due to “plain old corporate greed.”
As head of one of the Senate’s most powerful committees, Warren will push to cap interest rates on credit cards, investigate the biggest banks and pass her “Stop Wall Street Looting Act,” which would exert numerous requirements on private equity firms, which she dubs “legal looters.” She will try to block mergers, accusing them generally of creating monopoly powers, and break up existing combinations like those linking insurance companies and pharmacies.
In a recent op-ed for Time magazine, Warren writes, “Democrats won by being populist economic fighters who were unafraid to call out the corrupt politicians and corporate interests who have rigged the system at the expense of everyone else.” That is her mindset.
It is going to be ugly.
Partnering with Warren, incredibly, is Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), considered likely to chair the House Financial Services Committee.
Like her colleagues, Waters promises to root out corruption in the Trump White House. But in 2010, the House Ethics Committee formally charged Waters with three counts of violating House rules regarding conflicts of interest. The charges related to her intervention with the Treasury, when she petitioned for bail-out funds for OneUnited Bank, on whose board her husband served and in which the couple had a significant financial interest.
The charges were later dropped, but not before the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington included Waters on several of its “most corrupt” watch lists.
As head of the Financial Service Committee, Waters pledges to eliminate “overdraft fees, late fees, convenience fees, and over-the-limit fees,” revive the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “rein in bad private equity actors and bring this unaccountable industry out of the shadows and subject it to oversight and regulation” and much more, scratching numerous progressive itches.
Or how about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) taking over the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee? The socialist senator from Vermont will push to expand Medicare by lowering the age of eligibility, including children, and adding vision and dental benefits. He also wants to nearly triple the minimum wage.
Then of course there is Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), taking over as head of the House Oversight Committee. He notoriously warned Trump allies to “lawyer up.” Garcia supports the Green New Deal, universal child care, and Medicare-for-all.
The “moderate” claim is ridiculous, but not just because these consequential leadership positions I have mentioned, nor even because so many more will be occupied by progressives. It is also wrong because supposed moderates like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — both presumed to be taking on the leadership of their respective chambers — are terrified of being primaried from the left and will do whatever they are told.
Anyone who doesn’t think that threat will bedevil those party leaders (and others) and guide Democrats’ policy going forward is not paying attention.
Read Liz Peek’s full column on The Hill here.
