America Awakens to the Danger of Cancer Culture, part 1

 

                        

On Tuesday November 2^nd voters across the country used their voices at the ballot box to protest the growing cancer on the body politic – the Progressive wing of the Democrat Party.  The spotlight on Tuesday was on the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.  New Jersey was the bluest of blue states, and Virginia solidly blue.  Yet the Republican candidate won in Virginia and the New Jersey Republican candidate came within a hairs breadth of winning.  In contrast to their opponents, each Republican candidate was completely unknown in the beginning and voiced practical solutions to the bread and butter issues impacting the citizenry of their States. 

Tuesday’s results loosened the grip of the Progressive hold on the Democrat Party.  Witness, after last Tuesday's election results,  the capitulation of the Progressive Caucus, to the Democrat moderates by passing the infrastructure bill without simultaneously passing their Progressive wish list bill.  Nancy Pelosi, the wizened pol, understood the results were more sweeping than just the gubernatorial races in two states.  In Virginia it was a clean statewide sweep.   Republicans won not just the governorship but also the lieutenant governorship, and the attorney generalship.  Republicans also regained control of the State House of Representatives.  This included the defeat of the Democrat Speaker of the Virginia House by an unknown whose campaign advertisement spending consisted of a youtube video of why he was running.    In Minneapolis, the home of the George Floyd unspeakable tragedy at the hands of a few police officers, the “eliminate the traditional police”, ballot measure, was soundly defeated.  In New York City, the Democrat who ran as the law and order candidate won the mayoral race.  In Nassau County New York, the moderate Democrat candidate prevailed over the progressive candidate for City Attorney. Similar results happened in Seattle, Portland, New Mexico, South Carolina, etc.

Lost in the excitement and delight of Donald Trump’s failed bid for reelection in 2020 were flashing yellow lights of voter discontent for Democrats.  President elect Biden had no coattails.  Republican senatorial candidates boasted strong victories, despite polling showing close races, and won 50 seats in the upper chamber.   But for Trump’s post-election lunacy of stolen election claims, the Republicans would have won one or both Georgia Senate runoff elections, securing a Senate majority.   The GOP gained seats in the House, though Democrats were expected to expand their majority.   Instead their majority in the House became razor thin.    Just as ominously, Republicans held every state legislature, including in multiple states Biden won handily.

Ignoring the cautionary signs, the Progressives acted as if they had a legislative mandate to recreate America in their own image.  Their eyes blinded to the election results by the moral certainty of their cause.  Their goal, create a utopian society of equity, inclusion, and diversity at the expense of the principles and political philosophy of America. 

America was founded on the philosophy of liberal democracy, and the principles that follow from that philosophy.  Here the individual reigns supreme and the role of government is to enhance individual liberties and to protect the individual from those within and without America who want to take away these liberties.  Succinctly put, an individual’s rights stops at the nose of another American, and the government’s role is to make sure that happens.

Our founding fathers also understood that the citizens’ individual liberties needed protection from unchecked Federal government power over individual States and over all American citizens.  A series of checks and balances limited the central government’s power by distributing power between three competing branches of government.    Government responsibilities not identified in the constitution as belonging to the Federal government, devolved to the domain of the individual States.  A bill of rights created to restrain the government’s power over its citizens – freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, due process, and all the other rights we take for granted that protects us from excessive government power.  All of these measures put in place to protect individual liberties from the central government and have citizens under more local control (the States) as much as possible,

The central importance of the individual in the framing of our constitution can be lost as the size of the Federal government has grown exponentially since our country's founding.  Yet that is where the battle lines are brightly drawn between Progressives and moderates.

Next time, why Progressivism is a cancer on democratic values and needs to be defeated.