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Do Democrat Voters Really Believe This Stuff?
In a cynical ploy to capitalize on our current hysteria over the video of George Floyd’s death, Democratic Reps Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts) announced the BREATHE Act last week. This proposed legislation seeks to radically transform America’s criminal justice system through a wide variety of actions:
- Eliminate life sentences
- Retroactively expunge drug crimes
- Permanently shut down multiple federal agencies
- Permanently close many prisons and detention centers
- End gang databases
- Establish pilot programs for universal basic income
- Give voting rights to all illegal immigrants
- Give voting rights to all incarcerated criminals
- Give free lifetime education to all illegal immigrants
- Give free lifetime education to all incarcerated criminals
This sweeping legislation brings up two groups of questions in my mind.
First, do the congresspeople who proposed this bill hope that it will become law? Or is this just their version of virtue-signaling? And if it does become law, do they expect it to help black communities? So they want to defund police and release criminals from jail. And they expect this to reduce crime. How, exactly? Is this a real effort to reduce the crime rate in black neighborhoods, or is it simply a cynical ploy to get votes?
Which brings up my second set of questions:
I have a lot of friends whom I respect who vote Democrat. How many of the proposals above would these Democrat voters be in favor of? Does the average Democrat voter actually believe that you can reduce crime by decreasing the number of police on the streets and increasing the number of criminals on the streets? How, exactly, do they expect that to work?
Which reminds me of another interesting news story from last week:
Kanye West is a rapper, Christian, and now, apparently, a presidential candidate. He recently made a statement about Planned Parenthood: “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
Remember that he has a point here. Planned Parenthood was started by famous eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who started it as “The Negro Project,” to limit reproduction of races she found to be mentally and culturally unfit. She even bragged about speaking for the KKK in this passage from her autobiography: “I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan… I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak…In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered.”
Every year Planned Parenthood gives out its highest award, called “The Margaret Sanger Award” to honor the legacy of its founder. When Hillary Clinton received the award in 2009, she said during her acceptance: “It was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously. … I’m really in awe of her. There are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life, from the causes she launched and fought for and sacrificed for so greatly.”
Kanye West has been known to say outrageous things with little basis in fact. But in this particular case, even if one disagrees with him, one can certainly understand how he might reach his conclusion that “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
Anyway, as one might expect, Planned Parenthood took exception to Mr. West’s statement. Nia Martin-Robinson (the director of Black Leadership and Engagement at Planned Parenthood’s national headquarters) said, “Black women are free to make our own decisions about our bodies and pregnancies, and want and deserve to have access to the best medical care available. Any insinuation that abortion is Black genocide is infantilizing. The real threat to Black communities’ safety, health, and lives stems from lack of access to quality, affordable health care, police violence and the criminalization of reproductive health care by anti-abortion opposition.”
So let’s do this again. Same two sets of questions:
First, does Ms. Martin-Robinson really believe that statement that I bolded above? Police violence kills more black people than abortion? A perceived lack of access to quality, affordable health care is more of a threat to black communities than gang violence? The ‘criminalization of reproductive health care’ is more of a threat to black communities than the destruction of the black family? Does she really believe any of that?
And second, does the average Democrat voter out there really believe those things? Are those statements a winning platform for Joe Biden?
The Democrat party seems to presume that their voters are stupid. In my experience, that is not true. But it does appear that the average Democrat seems to have an uncomfortable relationship with facts. So perhaps it’s not lack of intelligence, but a lack of interest in facts that don’t confirm your biases. For just one example:
Last year, Trump administration officials met with Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats to negotiate about the border wall. Attempting to explain why this wall is so important to American citizens, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen did a presentation that listed how many criminal aliens have been detained at the border, plus drug smugglers, terrorists, human traffickers, and various other undesirables. To her credit, Nielsen thought quickly on her feet (rather than running away screaming, which is what I generally do when I’m attacked by a rattlesnake). When Pelosi interrupted her presentation and flatly stated, “I reject your facts,” Nielsen immediately shot back, “These aren’t my facts, these are the facts.”
When the facts don’t fit their biases, they don’t propose their own reasoning or logic, they just deny the existence of those particular facts. Democrat voters of normal intelligence see this and vote for it. I don’t understand.
I’ve often wondered how my Democrat friends can vote for this stuff. I can say, “Your party intends to decrease crime by decreasing the number of police on the streets and increasing the number of criminals on the streets. They believe that lack of access to affordable health care is a greater threat to the black community than gang violence. They know what the weather will be like 500 years from now but they’re not sure how many genders there are this week. You won’t listen to a Ph.D. in climate science but you will listen to a Swedish teenager with a learning disability. You scream about Trump’s history of shady business dealings while you vote for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. C’mon – you’re voting for this stuff? You’re not stupid. I don’t understand.”
I’m not sure how they would respond, but I’m sure that they would go vote Democrat again. The Democrat party could run a career criminal with no record of success, a viciously unpleasant personality, and an affinity for tyrants and KKK sympathizers, and they would win half the vote.
In fact, in the last presidential election, they did exactly that.
I really don’t understand. These people are not stupid. But they vote for stuff that is absolutely, positively, mind-bogglingly stupid. Over and over and over again.
I just don’t understand.
And what I really don’t understand is how a Republican candidate can compete for the votes of such Democrats. How does one debate with such people? Imagine your attempts to discuss even obvious topics: “Yeah, well, you see, less police, more criminals…how do you think that’s likely to turn out?” And you would still lose the argument. To them. Somehow. I just don’t understand.
Those people are half the electorate. And I have no idea how to change that. Because I don’t understand how they think.
Published in General
Trump and his tweets are very irritating. The anti-history anti-individual anti-American Woke left is an existential threat. I doubt I’ll ever be a MAGA hat guy but if it wasn’t obvious before, it should be now. Alot of the NT guys are like feminists who are upset about caddish behavior among middle class white guys but ignore FGM in Africa or the prevalence of rape on Indian reservations. There are bigger concerns than the small things that you are obsessed about.
When almost every accusation of racism is BS, people begin to believe every accusation of racism is BS.
When almost every attempt to cancel someone is met by calls of “this is not our hill to die on” and “Civility” from the Gary Robbins types, people start to believe that every type of concession to someone being cancelled is a Gary Robbins democrat preaching his gospel of civility and surrender.
It’s the boy who cried wolf all over again. It’s not fair to you, Henry, but damn is it understandable.
My daughter, 24, styles herself “woke” and a “social justice warrior.” She believes that the jail system is just an extension of slavery, the police only work for the rich, and capitalism only enriches the powerful.
My sympathies.
Ask her where we should put white supremacists if we catch them, and who should catch them / stop them from hurting black people. It’s a legit question
To add:
At this point, any attempt to defend white Americans’ heritage, rights, and self interest is going to sound racist and they will be labeled white supremacists and white nationalists.
We’ve become so inured to similar (and worse) statements from minorities that no one bats an eye.
It has become increasingly obvious that a large group of the Democrat minority leadership would really rather white people not exist. And we allow that attitude to exist! Just do a search for “easier without white people” and see how much such an attitude is promoted in supposedly “respectable” media.
Why we bend over backwards to castigate anyone making slightly off color comments about them while we tolerate the excessive vitriol coming out of their mouths is a complete bafflement to me.
So I’m a lot more tolerant of calling illegal immigrants dirt while it is seen as a perfectly legitimate political statement to lead around white people in chains.
They know it will not become law, for many of the reasons posted in the comments. It’s position-taking, maneuvering, etc. However, the more these and others with a platform like congress talk in such ways, the further the Overton Window moves toward radical territory. This proposal from lightning rod members of Congress won’t change much in itself. But the radical language drumbeat overall is not good for the country.
Yeah, my relatives who vote Democrat still think it’s the image of the party of the 50’s and 60’s. Pro union and little guy, anti Wall Street, moderate, patriotic. Facts bounce off of them like water off a duck.
Hi Jerry,
I have been involved in Steve King’s election from the beginning. After the 2000 census, Iowa was redistricted, and the incumbent Tom Latham ran for re-election in a different district. IA-5 was an open seat in the 2002 election. Steve King was endorsed by The Club for Growth. I was a member of The Club for Growth. I gave money to Steve King, and I cheered this election. And I have followed his career ever since. What a terrible disappointment.
Not unlike Trump, Steve King has absolutely no control over his mouth. He has repeatedly spouted racially insensitive statements. He has made all Republicans look bad. He was repeatedly counseled by senior Republicans to stop spouting off in such a manner. (Steve King was not unlike Todd Akin who had led Claire McCaskill in 2012 until Akin said that women who are victims of what he called “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant. Akin lost a race he should have won.)
According to the New York Times in early 2019 Steve King stated “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/steve-king-trump-immigration-wall.html?module=inline Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney both suggested that Steve King should resign. Steve King refused and said that he had been misquoted. Given King’s long history of insensitivity, he was stripped of all of his committee assignments.
Steve King barely won re-election in a safe Republican seat (R+11) in 2018. Shortly after King was stripped of all of his committee assignments, a member of the Iowa legislature took on Steve King and then defeated him in the 2020 primary. We cannot afford to have candidates like Steve King who cannot control his mouth and spouts off great copy for the other side.
Gary
I can answer that but it will have to be in private.
Surprise. Our Reagan Republican© is urging you to contribute to another Democrat.
You know those will be the ones left standing.
So you are the side of AOC and Rashida Tlaib? O-Kay.
This one sounds great to me, but I’m sure they want to shut down useful agencies and keep the flotsam.
I never cared if Steve King is really a racist because the immediate problem was that he is a moron and a liability. We know the game is rigged—all Republicans are responsible for any misstatement by any Republican but no Democrat is ever asked to endorse or disown whatever vile idiocy their colleagues may spew. But we need to embrace the suck and minimize the damage.
I was impressed that the GOP stripped King of committee positions. Democrats are largely incapable of that kind of principled action against their own—a Democrat has to actually be convicted of a felony or vote with Republicans to merit formal disciplinary action.
The Democrat party is controlled by very wealthy media giants, companies with falling marginal costs, and thousands of their technically educated employees who don’t understand much but are smart and successful so think they do, the gullible who want to be part of the group support them, the dumb who don’t understand much support them and those who get the goodies support them. We have to find ways to split the top media giants as they are monopolies and will get more powerful with time. They have to because they don’t cover their costs and growth supports their stock prices making the owners wealthy. We must separate the natural monopolies from the normal companies they are increasingly controlling. I don’t know how but I know its necessary and appropriate.
Exactly , I call these the ‘Mr Roosevelt, he gunna save us all’ voters they don’t know any of the issues or positions beyond Republican bad, Democrat good.
There’s some truth to that, I’m afraid. But when you say: “We have to find ways to split the top media giants as they are monopolies and will get more powerful with time. They have to because they don’t cover their costs and growth supports their stock prices making the owners wealthy”…Facebook certainly covers its costs, its 2019 net income was $18.4 billion. Even Twitter has a positive net income.
I believe it was Jim Geraghty over at National Review who made the point that if you’re a congressman from Iowa and you have a Confederate flag on your desk, you probably need to explain what kind of messaging you’re trying to put out here.
At the very least, King was addicted to trolling liberals to the point he didn’t give a damn if he gave the progressive media outlets new ammunition to use against all Republicans (because we all know the drill, where the actions and statements of one Republican is a blanket condemnation of all Republicans, while the actions of statements of one Democrat is only germane to that individual Democrat — and if it’s a really egregious incident, that person probably wasn’t a Democrat, anyway). At worst, King was the type who didn’t see anything wrong with the alt right vision of the GOP, either way, his actions made him more of a PITA for the rest of the party, especially those in swing states or swing districts.
Shhhh…I’ll tell you a secret, but you have to promise @drbastiat not to tell anyone else. You promise? OK, here it goes. Have you heard Trump say we are going to Mars? Certainly you have heard about the “Space Force”. Well, ha, ha, ha, it’s not US he’s sending to Mars. It’s the DEMOCRATS! Trump’s gonna send them all to Mars where they can jack with each others peace of mind all they want to, and leave us to hell alone! That’s it, the solution. PERIOD.
There you go, you had to say that, didn’t you @oldbathos? I despise that man. Every time he opens his mouth, I despise him even more. My morning was going by just swimmingly, doing a little watering of the shrubs, enjoying the early morning reprise from the surely soon to arrive heat of the mid-day, and you mention the name. I only hope Trump puts him on that first rocket to Mars, even before all the Democrats.
I beg to differ. It may be a team sport for the Democrats. It’s cat-herding for Republicans.
They don’t see a vote for Hillary as a moral compromise. They see her as a victim of the Republicans!
I understand that visceral dislike. I feel it toward Trump. I see him on the TV and flip him off in the privacy of my own home. I saw him on an ad in a movie theater, and immediately flipped him off in public. Trump reminds me of every bully that bullied me in school.
I am going to hate most of the Biden’s policies. But there will be one benefit. No more Trump invading my life. The cost is worth it.
I read too slow to ever get to the end of the comments, so I’ll just answer the title of this conversation now: No, but some do.
And finish with a portion of a quote that probably everyone who has ever said doodly squat on Ricochet knows full well – “…you can fool some of the people all of the time…and that’s enough!”
I am a 39 yr old woman raised in a liberal left family, originally from the East coast. Things have gone so far south: it’s because leftwing ideas have been taken as far left as they will go. I feel a bit guilty about that! My parents started moving right during the Obama years. (They came to visit very grim after gay marriage passed – I was virtue signaling saying things like “what’s wrong with that?”- and my dad said grimly “now we are drowning in this crap propaganda. You know what’s next? TRANS!”)
I took longer, but HRC nomination did it for me. I really respect conservativism and I wish I could help us/you understand the questions posed in this article. Do not overestimate the answers. It’s probably a lot simpler than you think.
Firstly being leftwing is Cool. Being conservative is not cool.
Secondly, being on the left indicates you are Compassionate. (The gesture is more important than the content. That goes without saying. It’s like baking a cake. The result never looks as good sitting on your kitchen counter, even all iced and sprinkled, as it did on Instagram. That’s normal. It’s the thought that counts. This is how they think about something like prison reform.)
Self-image is very important to liberals. They don’t think « is what I am saying true? » they think « how does this look on me? »
i am reminded of my deeply buried feelings about women in hjabs for example and how that squared with my positive feelings about the glories diversity, and the supposed rottenness of rich Judeo-Christian cultures. There was no conflict for me, because I wouldn’t listen to my inner voice telling me how lucky I was to be born in a free western democracy. People in 3rd world countries are pure, untainted. When I let myself hear the cognitive dissonance, the game was up. No turning back either.
Thirdly, Jonathan Haidt has written about this. I have yet to read it, but I have heard him speak: different perspectives on tradition, loyalty etc. I have yet to read that, but I will. (Busy with a history of the Crusades right now).
Conservatives, whether you like it or not, you are no longer the establishment. You are the rebels. You must find a way to capitalize on this.
That means not going around like Ben Shapiro does, distancing yourselves from young voices like Candace Owens, Joseph Paul Watson (known as Prison Planet), Milo (who redpilled me, actually), the #Walk Away compaign and others. Stop apologizing. Stop prefacing all statements by saying you aren’t « racist, sexist or homophobic, but… »
It’s hard to be a conservative. Sometimes I wish I could drink the Kool-aid again.
This comment is so good, it deserves its own post. Seriously. This needs to read by everybody who reads the Member Feed, and it needs to be elevated to the Main Feed. This is the best comment I have read in a long time. Please create your own post based on this comment.
That may happen. It is a calculated gamble. But it comes from my heart.
Actually, I prefer to see the Democrats without the moderate mask. AOC and Tlaib actually say what so many Democrats try to hide.
And I just have to laugh because you, by donating to ACT BLUE are actually funding AOC and Tlaib.