LIZ PEEK: A brave Democrat leaves his party as radical socialists take over
"This is a party that is jumping off a cliff, and I don’t intend to jump with them."
That was Julian Epstein, long-time Democrat apparatchik, talking recently about his party. He said in a post on X, "I think the Democrats have gone off the deep end… the lunatics are in charge of the asylum."
Epstein, who served as chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee and worked to elect Hillary Clinton, is disgusted with his party for having "gone too far left" and having "lost its moral center." He announced in an op-ed in the New York Post that he is supporting Mike Rogers, the Republican running for the Senate in Michigan against progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, because Rogers is a "very practical middle-of-the-road normie guy who would’ve been very consistent with where the Democrats were during the Clinton administration."
Good for Epstein. He says in his broadside that his announcement isn’t about him, but rather an indication of where a lot of Democrats may end up. He declared, "There’s no room in the [Democrat] tent for people who want to destroy our constitution, there’s no room in the tent for people who want to align themselves with radical Islam, there’s no room in the tent for people who align themselves with antisemitism…"
Good for Epstein. My only question is what took him so long? And… where are his Democrat colleagues?
The answer to the first question is simple. The Socialist surge, and more specifically the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America, is fairly recent. Yes, the progressive "Squad" has been a noisy far-left cohort in Congress for several years, and heaven knows Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic Socialist, has been spouting the exact same "tax the rich" dogma for decades.
But Democrats’ growing engagement with the progressive Left gained warp speed with the campaign of Zohran Mamdani, who was elected mayor of New York City last year. Since then, membership in the DSA has exploded, attracting the highly educated but profoundly ignorant young (mostly white) liberals who know nothing about the sorry history of Socialism and don’t understand how well off they are.
Yes, it’s hard to buy a house, and rent is expensive, but so are incomes for those who want to work, and there are millions of job openings. The standard of living in the U.S., where nearly everyone has a cell phone and routinely lines up for $6 lattes, is among the highest of any place on earth. That’s not conjecture; it’s a fact. Americans’ median income is $72.07 per day, 32% above the median Brit’s $54.55, 70% above Japan’s $42.10, and five times China’s $13.36, according to the World Bank.
The answer to the second question — where are other Democrats? — is also simple. The Socialist "movement" has promoted a slew of kooky candidates, some of whom have successfully challenged long-time incumbents, like Adriano Espaillat, head of the Hispanic Caucus, throwing the fear of the Almighty into sitting Democrats.
Not only are embattled legislators lying low. We also have a whole posse of Democrats aiming to run for the Oval Office in 2028 who have abandoned their traditional beliefs, their common sense and the Constitution, pandering to their progressive comrades.
Pete Buttigieg is campaigning for El-Sayed, the far-left newbie who won the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate in Michigan, Gavin Newsom supports a national wealth tax despite earlier opposing it in California and Kamala Harris wants to "revisit" the Electoral College and packing the Supreme Court, as well as statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
LIZ PEEK: MICHIGAN CAN STOP THE SOCIALIST FEVER RAGE — OR WATCH IT SWALLOW THE SENATE
Harris also jumped left in 2020 during her failed attempt to secure the Democrat nod in that cycle, causing the Los Angeles Times to run a scathing story about her bait-and-switch: "Kamala Harris tried being something she wasn’t. Now that liberal makeover is dogging her candidacy." Wait until this round.
Other senior Democrats are also prostrating themselves in front of the progressive surge. Chuck Schumer, a Jew who represents New York’s million-plus Jewish residents, has embraced Abdul El-Sayed and others of his ilk, regardless of their attacks on Israel.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, is just as pusillanimous. He talks about welcoming the DSA into his party’s Big Tent, even though that crowd mercilessly booed him at a home state victory party and its candidates won’t commit to electing him House speaker.
Epstein, and a very few others like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, reveal them all to be the cowards they are. But his most important message is his condemnation of "people that don’t have any interest in building for the next generation but only want to redistribute what others have created and basically tear down the free market that has been the most effective anti-poverty liberation machines that human beings have ever invented."
CAPITALISM IS ABOUT INCENTIVES. STOPPING THE STUPIDITY OF SOCIALISM IS A BIG INCENTIVE
Bingo. This is the root cause of Socialism’s failure — the main reason that Cuba, Russia, Venezuela and other collectivist states don’t succeed — and why Democrat-run blue states are getting outgunned by GOP-managed red states.
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Democrats have been hammering away at the inequities of our society and the villainy of the wealthy for so long — echoing Bernie Sanders’ "Tax the Rich" pitch — that they have forgotten what makes our economy work.
It isn’t Big Government that creates jobs and fosters innovation; it’s the competitive free market and the opportunity to create new businesses and — yes — wealth, that has made our economy and our country the envy of the world.
There’s a reason that people like Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla and other fabulously successful entrepreneurs brought their skills and ambitions to the U.S. Historically, this country has celebrated those who make, not those who take. Today’s Democrats have lost that thread, but voters have not. Polling by right-leaning pollster John McLaughlin finds "Americans overwhelmingly prefer free-market capitalism over big government socialism."
Let us hope those Americans show up in November and teach Democrats the Epstein lesson.