Far left Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) has a badly written screed in today’s Washington Post, locus of the corrupt and dishonest media opposition to President Trump. Ellison is not known for being thoughtful and today’s piece doesn’t change that perception.
The title of his op-ed contains its essence: “Want to see who Republicans care about? Check their anti-poor budget.” Ellison never stops to consider that being “pro-poor” is the morally indefensible position here but no matter. This is more ignorant demagoguery from Minnesota’s leading demagogue, where the competition for that title is stiff indeed.
Trump’s sound claim that in order to be great again, America needs to become rich again doubtless strikes him as some robber baron lingo updated for the technological age. It isn’t.
Ellison’s general indictment is wide of the mark and fundamentally wrong. He claims wanting to reduce use of food stamps is a bad thing, rather than the right approach to avoiding an increasingly dependent citizenry. Liberals need such a populace (native or imported) and virtually every public policy they propose is designed to further that end. He claims reductions in the growth rate of Medicaid are synonymous with wanting people to go without healthcare, which is demonstrably false. He then claims reducing the billions wasted on failed schools with bloated, overpaid administrators means Republicans don’t care about education.
These are pretty much standard issue leftist ranting points, asserted without facts or any attempt at persuasion. Repeating failed tropes from last year’s election is an indication that Ellison has learned precious little from it. His political idiocy is best concentrated in one line: “The Republican Party thinks the super rich don’t have enough, and the poor far too much.”
Why yes, Donald Trump packed venues across the nation with that message.
Part of the problem with Ellison’s piece is that he conflates the Trump budget with the Republican budget. The two are far from one in the same. But when he says “[t]he GOP doesn’t actually care about balanced budgets and reducing the deficit” I’m forced to agree. Ellison seems to forget, if he ever realized, that Trump ran against the entrenched interests of the Republican Party almost as much as against the Democrat candidate. No greater obstacle to the President’s agenda exists than sclerotic, swamp-dwelling Congressional Republicans.
Ellison claims “Republicans resent the power of the people.” This is hilarious if he’s applying that comment to Trump. He’s our first truly independent president, having stormed the flaccid ramparts of consultant driven, career Republican politicians who cheerfully sold out their voters every bit as much as did Democrats.
Touchingly, he frets about the 236,000 people on food stamps in West Virginia, the first time I can recall he ever cared about that state (too white for an anti-white racist like Ellison). He claims the budget will cause Trump voters in that state “to starve, or face eviction in order to eat.” The only people who take such a man seriously are the national and, especially, local media, believe me.
Having utterly misdiagnosed what ails America, Ellison can only double down on the very approaches that have put this country in the decline that President Trump is in the process of reversing. Magic thinking, the only kind the not bright Ellison can engage in, is deployed at once: “investing” two trillion dollars in infrastructure to create jobs. Bernie Sanders-like, Ellison makes college “free.” And, of course, no liberal fantasy is complete without advocating vigorous efforts against that hoax known as climate change.
Finally, Ellison sees economic growth as a zero sum game, as something limited to be apportioned and reapportioned according to his far left ideology. He complains that the richest eight people have more money than the remaining 3.6 billion (Ellison doesn’t say where that latter number comes from).
He asks “how can working people ever hope to have a voice at the table?” Has no one told Keith Hakim that those very people voted overwhelming for Trump and are at the most important table in the nation, the one at the White House?
Let’s not forget that Ellison is one of the first to call Trump’s advocacy for the forgotten men & women of this nation inherently bigoted and racist. His Washington Post opinion piece is the definition of disingenuous but that’s the least of it.
No, if this is the thinking of the Democratic Party as it positions itself in the upcoming elections, then things are worse for them than even I thought. Stale, failed ideas coupled with embarrassing rip offs from Trump (“a better deal”) will not get traction with most voters, who are actually looking for genuine progress and not social engineering designed to make America look like North Brazil.
2018? Bring it.
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In addition to Alpha News, John Gilmore is also a contributor to The Hill. He is the founder and executive director of Minnesota Media Monitor.™ He blogs at MinnesotaConservatives.org and is on Twitter under @Shabbosgoy