Be careful what you wish for.
Over the summer and into the fall, some conservative pundits have been gleefully pointing to the Democrat party’s leftward lurch. From socialists and communists to Islamists, from non-binary-affirming advocacy to people who believe that illegal aliens should have more rights than citizens, these figures are no longer on the fringe — they command the party.
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The demands of this reinvented Democrat party are so laughable, offensive, and unworkable that the prevailing narrative assumes voters will see Republicans as the only logical choice come Election Day. But as someone who remembers elections going back to Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide over George McGovern, I foresee a glaring flaw in that logic.
Independent voters — the group that decides elections — don’t always vote on ideology; they vote on their wallets. With inflation running hot, they could punish the party in power. That doesn’t mean independents endorse far-left ideology; it simply means they want to voice their displeasure to Washington and will worry about the consequences later.
Here lies the real danger: Power inevitably shifts. Whether it happens this November or in a future cycle, voters will eventually usher the opposition back into office. The difference this time is that, historically, hard-left movements rarely yield power voluntarily. Even if that sounds like hyperbole, the structural damage a radicalized Democrat party could wreak while in power won’t be easily undone.
Figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Abdul El-Sayed, and Zohran Mamdani are just the warm-up act. Imagine a day in the not-so-distant future, when the likes of those representatives make up a working majority of the House, Senate and sit in the White House.
Compounding this issue, our primary and secondary educational institutions have been spoon-feeding this dreadful ideology for over a generation, as if it were reading, writing, and arithmetic. Along with our educational system, our media package radicalism as progress, with nary a negative word on things like communism, socialism, and growing antisemitism.
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Because of this, two specific demographic groups, young people and single women, are believers in the new left. Do they truly understand what socialism and communism are compared to capitalism? How could they, as all they have been taught on the subject is that capitalism is evil.
America hasn’t been pressed this hard from within since 1865. If you think, “It can’t happen here,” I only wish I shared your optimism.
This extreme ideology of the left didn’t sprout from nowhere. From Antifa riots and ICE attacks, it is well funded through the likes of people like George Soros and began locally. From school boards to ballot initiatives to the culture at large, Republicans are being outgunned.
Can we stop the far left from securing permanent institutional control? I don’t know — and that is precisely why conservatives must stop assuming the opposition’s radical politics will make them unelectable, and fight for every vote.
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Image: Chris Dodds via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.