‘Why I support the House Democrats’

OPINION:

I am wildly enthusiastic about the Democrats who control the House of Representatives. Some people might ask why a person who considers himself a conservative would be so supportive of a group that is leaning more and more to the far left as it controls of half of the nation’s legislature, but it makes absolute sense to me. Conservatives are usually supportive of less government, and the House Democrats have accomplished little or nothing since being sworn in. What more could those of us who lean to the right ask for?

A substantial portion of the Democrats in the House seem to believe that they were elected with a mandate to impeach President Trump and have spent most of this term trying to come up with a charge. It is not clear to me that the Democratic voters knew how their representatives would fritter away their time; but the bright, shiny object of impeachment has distracted them from wasting the taxpayers’ money on zany causes such as free college tuition for all, universal Medicare and doing away with immigration enforcement. 

While their own speaker looks on in horror at the train wreck that “The Peoples’ House” has become, the electorate swings toward demanding that someone should do something about the immigration crisis as her party is painting itself as the action arm of the movement toward open borders. Polls also show that the majority of people like their health insurance while the Democrats have morphed into the party of government-controlled health care.

Those items that the House has actually passed may please the hard core of the party’s far-left base — whatever that is — but they have largely been dead on arrival when they reach the Senate, and would never overcome a presidential veto if by some miracle the senior body passed any of them. It is very hard for real small-government conservatives to complain about that kind of legislative incompetence.

As a bonus for us on the right, the Democratic House has provided hours of entertainment. Few fiction writers could have scripted anything as comic as the Mueller hearings. Ringling Bros. may be out of the circus business, but the clowns have made a soft landing on Capitol Hill.

Undaunted by the Mueller fiasco, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings — who has never passed a dead horse that couldn’t be flogged one more time — led the Democrats on his committee in subpoenaing White House work communications. Mr. Cummings’ committee seems determined to give lynch mobs everywhere a bad name.

The Mueller hearings were mercifully short and Mr. Cummings’ sideshow will languish in the courts, but the antics of the “Squad” continue to provide entertainment for the whole family. In what turned out to be his last column, Wesley Pruden sagely advised President Trump to lay off the Squad. These four loons are doing more for Republican Party membership than any recruiting committee could ever hope; this is particularly true of white males, supporters of Israel, anyone over 55 and self-identified Christians.

I’m also wildly supportive of the Democratic National Committee, which has allowed about half of the party to declare themselves to be presidential candidates and let this exercise in self-immolation play itself out in nationally televised debates. A Marine Corps drill instructor once asked me if Ho Chi Minh had personally sent me to destroy his platoon. Uncle Ho would never in his most creative moments thought up anything like the current Democratic primaries. The party of identity politics is outdoing itself in recruiting among and pandering to the nation’s fringe groups so as to virtually ensure a rout when it faces the general electorate. Wes Pruden was absolutely right. Conservatives and Republicans should not get between the Democratic stampede and the cliff it is heading for.

There are still members of the Democratic Party with a grasp on reality, but its moderates and blue dogs are being hounded into the nether regions of the political landscape. Moderate Democrats are facing a three-pronged Hobson’s Choice as the next election nears if the far-left progressives capture the party as they did in 1972. First, they can hope that Mr. Trump makes a truly impeachable error; in which case they will face Mike Pence who is an even more formidable conservative than the president. Second, they can lay low and hope for better times than these in 2024. Third, they can form a third party and ensure a Republican victory. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys and gals.

• Gary Anderson lectures in Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.