Oh those poor Democrats. To hear some of them talk, they are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. In this case, the rock is President Trump and the hard place is the party’s ever increasing slide into socialism. They worry about how Trump has “already begun casting the Democrats as socialists.” What they should be worried about is the fact the voters already know where the Democratic Party stands. Then there are the kinks already showing in the so-called armor of the leading candidates. It’s time to pull up the chair, grab the popcorn and watch the on-going soap opera of “As the Democrats Turn”.

In previous presidential races, there’s often been one or two candidates during the primary season we could point to and tell our children “that’s a socialist”. In 2016, we experienced the closest thing to a socialist scare we’ve had in a very long time with Bernie Sanders. Had the DNC not stacked the deck against him so St. Hillary would be their candidate, we might have had a different outcome. I like to think we wouldn’t, but Sanders has mastered manipulating crowds, like so many politicians (especially those touting socialism as the only way to save a nation).

For now, much of the Democratic cast of candidates is, if diverse by race and gender, positioned mostly on the left end of the ideological spectrum. . . The candidates are not openly fretting about the GOP attempt to paint Democrats as extremists intent on nudging the country toward socialism. But activists and voters have voiced concerns over the past week about being defined by the opposition.”

Gee, you’d almost think they didn’t want to be known as what they really are. Not that I blame them. After all, if you know who and what your enemy is, you are less likely to fall for any line of BS they give you. The smart Dems know that. It is a lesson they learned the hard way in 2016 when  voters turned their back on Hillary. In fact, in What Happened, Clinton recounts a conversation with a life long Democrat who said he wouldn’t be voting Democrat in the 2016 election. Why? Because he’d listened to all their promises and bought into them for so long. Yet those promises had gone unfulfilled. Why not give the Republicans a chance? After all, they couldn’t be worse than the Dems.

Now, not all the Dems are as open about their leanings as is Sanders. He freely admits he is a socialist. On most occasions, he’ll say he’s a democratic socialist (this lets him slide in as a candidate on the Democratic ticket). Others, like Kamala Harris will deny it, despite backing The New Green Deal and other socialist-leaning stances.

Of course, Harris has her own set of issues she is going to have to deal with the longer she stays in the primary race for president. The most obvious is her history with Willie Brown. Then there’s her turn around on certain issues, like jail time for drug offenders. The latest challenge comes from her own father.

“Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?” Kamala Harris said in reference to smoking pot. Yes, she even admitted she inhaled.

To say her father, Donald Harris, took exception to her comment is putting it mildly.

My dear departed grandmother … as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,” he said.

Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” Mr. Harris, an economics professor at Stanford University, concluded in a statement to the news site for the Jamaican diaspora.”

“In the pursuit of identity politics.” Yep, that pretty much sums up not only Harris but many of the Democratic candidates. It is going to be a very long campaign season, I’m afraid.

But she’s not the only one. There’s Cory Booker who tries on the one hand to paint himself as someone who reached across party lines, working with the president to get things done. Yet, on the other hand, he supports Medicare for all (universal healthcare). Even then, he weasels.  “Medicare-for-all is great, but if we can’t get that, but if we can extend Medicare down to age 55 . . . that’s going to create such an effect on the whole system that’s going to make it better.” And let’s not forget he also supports the New Green Deal. Funny, isn’t it, how none of these liberals ever tell us how they’re going to pay for all these wonderful new programs.

We certainly can’t forget the Democrats’ darling of the 2018 election cycle, Beto O’Rourke. I know, I know, he hasn’t declared for president–yet. But boy is he making the rounds, including a lengthy interview with Oprah not too long ago.

O’Rourke has built his political career on being a sort of “every man”, a man of the people who identifies with their needs and concerns. The truth is he’s anything but. He is the step-grandson of John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of the Navy, Fred Korth. His father was the county judge and, according to O’Rourke, “larger than life”. For three years, Beto attended Woodberry Forest School, “an elite, all-male boarding school nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains foothills.” This is where he suffered the “trauma” of not fitting in, of deciding to go by his given name of Robert instead of the nickname Beto, etc. Poor little rich kid in other words whose only struggle was that he wasn’t like everyone else. Welcome to the real world, Robert. Yet, as the article states, his attendance at Woodberry is little more than a “blip” in O’Rourke’s public persona. It doesn’t fit the image he continues to put forth to the public. And, when you dig deep enough, you come to realize image is everything to O’Rourke. He changes it to fit whatever he is going after at the time. For now, that image is of the crusading your politician fighting for the underdog, wanting universal healthcare, open borders and, well, an end to much of the foundation of our country. Just like any other good little liberal.

You know the smoke of socialism is signaling a fire when even CNN has a hard time downplaying how far to the left Democratic presidential candidates are leaning.

From Booker leftward, the candidates are, broadly speaking, in favor of the “Green New Deal” and “Medicare for All.” Both those programs would fundamentally reshape our society — whether by handing the government control of our health care or overhauling our economic and environmental realities with a big cash infusion via taxing the very wealthy — in ways that would make the federal  government more and more powerful. From Harris rightward, there is a healthy skepticism of the practicality (and political savvy) of backing those massive government programs.

To be clear: There is not a massive amount of policy difference between Sanders and Biden. And you are splitting hairs on hairs when trying to determine whether Gillibrand or Booker is closer to the democratic socialist view of the world.”

If that isn’t enough to scare you, how about this? A recent poll shows that the top choices among Democratic voters for president are–drum roll, please–Michelle Obama and Joe Biden. Yes, you read that right. Michelle “give only healthy choices of food at school and watch the amount of food thrown away grow” Obama and Joe “Hands” Biden. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mainly, I want to dig in and do everything I can to make sure a Democrat never darkens the Oval Office again.

Then there is Bernie Sanders, the grandfatherly socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to be like. He is now officially in the race to be president–again. He proved in the last presidential race he can be a candidate we need to take seriously. That’s especially true now when “A recent Monmouth University poll showed a majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters of all ages prioritize the ability to win the general election over ideology in a 2020 nominee. However, larger percentages of older voters, women and people of color want a candidate who can conquer Trump, even if they disagree with most of their platform.”

Heaven help us. Trump Derangement Syndrome is so strong in some of these folks they don’t care who they elect or what that person stands for as long as it isn’t Trump. This is what each of us needs to remember as the primary race heats up. The Dems will talk the talk, press the socialist agenda without openly admitting that’s what they’re doing (with the exception of Sanders and a few others). But all they care about is beating Trump. They will fan the fears of their supporters, hoping no one looks too closely at what they are actually calling for. It is up to us, every conservative and libertarian out there, to make sure we not only know what they are calling for but that we are actively working against it. If not, our country is doomed.

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Featured Image: Bernie Sanders caricature by DonkeyHotey and licensed under Creative Commons 2.0. Cropped and manipulated.