RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://thefederalist.com/2019/03/12/bernie-sanders-now-moderate-democratic-presidential-candidate/

In 2016, it seemed unlikely that Sen. Bernie Sanders—technically not a Democrat—would become one of the most important figures in Democratic politics and arguably the moderate candidate in the 2020 presidential field. Many may not believe it now. After all, he’s a self-described socialist. But it’s a true story that says as much about the Democratic Party as it does Sanders.

Campaigning in Iowa, Sanders bragged that the major planks of his 2016 campaign—Medicare-for-all, “free” college tuition, and a $15 minimum wage—were considered “radical “ then but are Democratic Party dogma now. He is not wrong (Sanders might have added that he was the godfather of the Green New Deal). Bernie has gone from persona non grata to acceptable presidential nominee among his Democratic Senate colleagues.

Democrats’ leftward lurch was not due solely to Sanders’ 2016 campaign. President Obama’s misgovernance reduced his party to its bedrock supporters, who leaned heavily left. Once the supposed “centrist” Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump based on blue-collar states, progressives pounced on the chance to argue Sanders could have won and his issues were the future of the party. (Conservatives often make the mirror argument when Republicans lose, which is how we got the Tea Party in 2009.)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/stacey-abrams-clarifies-timing-possible-presidential-run-n981986

AUSTIN, Texas — Stacey Abrams said Monday that a 2020 presidential run is “definitely on the table,” clarifying earlier remarks that seemed to rule one out.

The Georgia Democrat, who narrowly lost a gubernatorial bid last year, suggested earlier in the day that she wouldn’t be ready to consider a presidential campaign until 2028.

But later, she said on Twitter that a White House bid in the current election cycle was still under consideration.In an onstage interview at South by Southwest, the former minority leader of the Georgia Statehouse, said she had been keeping a spreadsheet mapping out her future since she was a young woman, which showed she would not ready to make a White House bid for another eight years.

“In the spreadsheet with all the jobs I wanted to do, 2028 would be the earliest I would be ready to stand for president because I would have done the work I thought necessary to be effective at that job,” Abrams said.

https://nypost.com/2019/03/11/democrats-new-campaign-reforms-are-a-war-on-free-speech/

The same Democrats who can’t abide President Trump’s alleged offenses against the First Amendment passed, as their first priority, a speech-restricting bill opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Trump shouldn’t call the media the ­“enemy of the people” or inveigh against Jeff Bezos for owning The Washington Post, but Nancy Pelosi’s HR 1, enacted in the House last week, is the true affront to the Constitution.

The wide-ranging legislation purports to reform campaign finance with a series of vague, sweeping measures that will act to chill speech when they don’t actively regulate or squelch it. HR 1 is called the For the People Act but would be more aptly titled The Be Careful What You Say, It Might Be Illegal Act.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/11/intersectional-democrats

The party that has spent years working to turn American politics into a mud pit of racial strife is finally reaping what it sowed.

Once the exclusive province of campus leftists, “intersectionality” is the idea that all “oppressed and powerless” people ought to put their squabbles aside and unite in a common struggle. As they have grown increasingly reliant on a coalition of non-whites, sexual minorities, and feminist white women in recent years, Democrats flirted with and then lionized the intersectional Left.

This strategy works effectively when there’s one agreed-upon group of oppressors to cast as a common villain. So Democrats have now fostered and embraced the most extreme activists from every identity group in America—and they have united around their enmity for the white men who voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump.

As the Democrats are learning, however, the plan breaks down when the various sections of the coalition begin to jockey over which has the most privilege or endures the most oppression. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to subdue a mini-revolt within her caucus last week over a watered-down resolution to condemn anti-Semitism because some Democrats considered it a distraction from other forms of bigotry that are more important to them personally. Pelosi’s solution was to dilute the resolution even further until it essentially became meaningless.

It turns out when you invite people into your coalition based on their racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual resentments, eventually they begin to resent each other.

That’s exactly what happened when Somali-American Representative Ilhan Omar’s intersectional allies swooped in to prevent the Democrats from condemning the Minnesota freshman’s promotion of anti-Semitic “dual loyalty” tropes against American Jews and their supporters in Congress.

“[N]o one seeks this level of reprimand when members make statements about Latinx + other communities,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) complained on Twitter. “[W]here are the resolutions against homophobic statements? For anti-blackness? For xenophobia? . . . don’t even get me started on misogyny.”