Scare tactics, political pipedreams, and pearl-clutching. These are the words Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) used to describe the behavior of one of the political parties, and it wasn’t his opponent’s.
That’s right — this Democrat Congressman has published an op-ed condemning his fellow party men for their extremism and failure to admit the obvious.
Biden’s poor performance in the debate was not a surprise. It also didn’t rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that.
Rep. Golden is not the first Democrat to throw in the towel on Biden since the disastrous debate. Criticism has been coming out of the woodwork. While some is more overt and some is more disguised, there are several common themes: a sense of betrayal, bewilderment, panic, hysteria. The Left had nothing to hide behind after the debate we all saw.
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What’s refreshing about Golden’s piece is that he says the sobering truths other Democrats were not brave enough to say, perhaps until now.
Democrats’ post-debate hand-wringing is based on the idea that a Trump victory is not just a political loss, but a unique threat to our democracy. I reject the premise. Unlike Biden and many others, I refuse to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system.
His words assassinate Biden’s character and his campaign. But he doesn’t stop there — he also had scathing remarks about Biden’s performance regarding our economy.
This election is about the economy, not democracy. And when it comes to our economy, our Congress matters far more than who occupies the White House.
Some of Congress’ best work in recent years has happened in spite of the president, not because of him. A handful of responsible Democrats, including myself and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, rejected Biden’s bloated “Build Back Better” bill and instead passed a law that supercharged American energy production, saved Medicare billions of dollars and reduced the deficit.
These words almost would sound like they were written by a Republican. He goes on to actually praise Trump’s trade policies and call on Democrats to stop sabotaging our nation in the name of their politics.
Congress will need to stand up to economic elites and so-called experts in both parties who are already working overtime to stop Trump’s proposed trade policies that would reverse the harms of globalization and protect American businesses from unfair foreign competition.
He did include some reprimands of the GOP in his letter, but it was hardly enough to overshadow the criticism of his own party’s elected nominee. He ended with a call for everyone to sober up from the Left’s election propaganda:
I urge everyone — voters, elected officials, the media, and all citizens — to ignore the chattering class’s scare tactics and political pipedreams.
If anything were a sign of the times, this letter and the other Democrats who are jumping ship serve as a clear marker of the historic and unprecedented times we are in. It is extremely unusual for so much negative criticism to be spoken by a candidate’s own party this close to an election. And yet, Biden may not be replaced on the ballot. It’s like the Democrats are handing this election over. At this rate, Trump could do nothing else for the next four months and win this election with his hand tied behind his back.
If the Democrats are that foolish not to replace their candidate now, they deserve this. They are showing us that they will not do what’s best for their own party, much less our country. Once again, they show us who they really are.
