Whose Divide?

Gerald Seib, in his Wall Street Journal‘s Capital Journal, has an odd take on the political (personal?) divide moving through our nation.

From the moment he rode down the escalator at his eponymous Fifth Avenue skyscraper to announce his candidacy three years ago, President Donald Trump has divided Americans[]

goes his lede, and he proceeds from there.

Never mind that it was then-Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) who dismissed Tea Partiers as mere Astroturfers.

Never mind that it was the NLMSM that insulted Tea Partiers with the careful slur of being mere tea bagger.

Never mind that is was then-Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D, MO) called Republicans terrorists for disagreeing with Congressional Progressive-Democrats on a bill.

Never mind that it was ex-President Barack Obama (D) who dismissed millions of Americans as mere bitter Bible-toting gun-clingers in flyover country and who insisted, while agreeing that he didn’t have all the facts, that police act stupidly.

Never mind that it was Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D) who dismissed millions of Americans as irredeemably deplorable racists, misogynists, homophobic, and Islamophobic.

Never mind that it’s the Left’s Antifa and BLM who routinely shout down and deny the right to speak to Americans with whom they disagree.

Never mind that it was the Left who, on Inauguration Day, didn’t just protest Donald Trump’s election and inauguration, they rioted and burned private businesses.

Trump’s comments often are personally demeaning, but they’re exactly that: personal.  Trump disparages, in uncommonly rude terms for a public office holder, other people, but he does it to individual persons.  He also only does so in response to a personal attack on him.  He doesn’t denigrate whole groups of Americans, and he doesn’t do it as the opening shot in a manufactured series of insults.

No, the divisions in our nation are long-standing and growing—and it’s the Progressive-Democrats and their Left base who are doing the dividing, and doing it with increasing zeal.

Misunderstood

A 13-year-old Huntsville girl was beheaded after she witnessed her grandmother assaulted with a knife and left to die on the ground in a cemetery, court testimony revealed.

A child.

The butchers were members of the Sinaloa cartel; apparently, they were disgruntled with the grandmother’s handling of a drug delivery.  It’s also…interesting…that the thugs chose to take the child along with the grandmother to the site where murder occurred, supposedly just to remonstrate with her before “[t]he argument escalated.”

These are the beasts that the Progressive-Democrats insist are not animals, just misunderstood yout’s.

An Example of Irrationality

Here’s Donald Trump decrying Germany’s willingness make itself dependent on Russian energy supplies by pushing for Nordstream 2, which will mean that Germany will get 60% of its natural gas from Russia, to go with the 40% of its oil imports that already are from Russia.  Aside from becoming so dependent on an enemy for its energy, Germany will be paying Russia billions of euros for the privilege.

I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.

The Progressive-Democrats went hysterical over Trump’s remark.  Here’s House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) in a joint statement:

President Trump’s brazen insults and denigration of one of America’s most steadfast allies, Germany, is an embarrassment.  His behavior this morning is another profoundly disturbing signal that the President is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies.

Because not wanting billions of euros to go to Russia in return for dependency on Russian good offices is somehow being loyal to Putin.

Sure.

Reactionary Ideologue

President Donald Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh, of the DC Circuit, to the Supreme Court, and “within seconds” Democracy for America called him a reactionary ideologue.

DfA, without correction from the Progressive-Democrats of Congress, or anyone else on the left, also has foretold Kavanaugh’s confirmation would

directly lead to the deaths of countless women with the dismantling of abortion rights.

Even taking the manufactured hysteria seriously, it’s instructive here as an aside (of no small size) to consider that the Left worries about the risks to grown, adult women who make the conscious choice to run a risk, but they care not a red sou for the deaths of countless babies who cannot speak for themselves and for whom the Left insists no one should so speak.

That the Progressive-Democrats’ opposition to the Kavanaugh nomination has nothing to do with principled disagreement with how the man might adjudicate cases and everything to do with naked politics is further illustrated by a fund-raising email House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) sent Monday.  In it she wrote that [emphasis added]

she is “determined to avenge President Obama if it’s the last thing I do” by preemptively opposing President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee….

All of this is confirmation of the Progressive-Democrats’ view of the Constitution.  That core of our nationhood is just something to be modified at will by unelected judges—so long as they’re properly selected by Progressive-Democrats.  It’s Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “living” constitution.

Or, as a journolist put it more bluntly,

[The constitution] has no binding power on anything.  …the text is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago….

Never mind that there’s nothing at all reactionary in a judge upholding the Constitution.  That’s what his oath of office enjoins him to do.  On the other hand, a judge modifying the Constitution to fit a personal view of social justice is rank judicial activism—and a violation of his oath of office.

Free Food Stamps

The House passed a farm welfare bill that includes a requirement for food stamp recipients to work for their welfare payouts last month, and the Senate passed its version—carefully without that requirement for actual work. Or perhaps just timidly passed, since Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts (R, KS) was intimidated by Progressive-Democrat Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) and couldn’t find the backbone to oppose her.

Now the two bills go to conference for resolution, and the outcome doesn’t look promising for work.

In today’s tight employment environment, that work would be easy to find, too, and in light of that, The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board made the comment

What’s bewildering is that Democrats seem willing to write off so much human potential as permanent wards of the state.

There’s nothing at all mysterious about that, though. The only potential that Progressive-Democrats see in these unfortunates is their votes, not their human potential. Indeed, that’s the Progressive-Democrat work-for-welfare program: vote for us Prog-Dems, or we won’t pay you any money.

President Donald Trump should support the House and inject some backbone into Senate Republicans, including especially Roberts, and announce he’ll veto any farm welfare/food stamp bill that doesn’t include the House’s work-for-stamps requirement.