OPINION:
With less than four months remaining until the midterm elections, there is a question voters still are not asking the candidates — and at this stage, it is the only one that really needs answering.
It is this: What does your ideal America look like?
Recent primary sweeps by the Democratic Socialists of America in New York City, the District of Columbia and Denver — as well as the far left’s likely August victories in the Midwest — should make anyone with an ounce of common sense very nervous indeed.
What we have seen thus far may well have just been the disgusting appetizer to an even less palatable main course.
Come Nov. 3, some 49 million people ages 18 to 29 will be eligible to vote. These are the people who got New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani elected and helped his proteges Claire Valdez, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier clinch Democratic nominations to represent the Empire State in the U.S. House.
Although midterms generally do not draw many voters, this bloc may well buck the trend and turn out in full force this fall. Its members are worryingly energized, fueled by a combination of near-total ignorance, an unearned sense of entitlement, more than a bit of scapegoatism and the lure of no personal responsibility or hard work.
For a generation with little to no recollection of 9/11 and significantly poorer K-12 academic performance than the Americans before it, this spells disaster.
These are voters with no idea where free-stuff-for-all leads — every single time — because contemporary public education does not teach real history. It is a group that does not value the institutions that keep people on the straight and narrow (the nuclear family, traditional manners, Judeo-Christian faith, the Constitution and law enforcement) because of the inroads far-leftism has made in our culture over the past few decades.
Last week, the DSA released its new platform, and based on the above, you can guess what is in it. Here are some of the major goodies: free healthcare and childcare, canceled student loans and other debt, cheap housing, toothless police departments and an end to the use of America’s abundant fossil fuels, with propped-up, costly “green” energy as the replacement.
Who is paying for all this? Nobody is asking because, again, those electing DSA candidates are a low-information group. Incidentals, such as reality, never make an appearance to them.
If you put two and two together — and this group will not — you can guess exactly how these politicians would answer the question about their ideal America:
There would be no borders. This experiment worked out so well under President Biden that, despite strides by the Trump administration, thousands of terrorists are still walking among us, having been welcomed in from 2021 to 2024.
Europe’s open-border policies offer a sobering test case. A recent example is that of African refugee Hadi Alodid, who allegedly attempted to behead a man in Belfast. Having been granted asylum in Ireland in 2023, he exploited the unmonitored border with Northern Ireland under the British-Irish Common Travel Area to travel without identity checks.
There would be no prisons. All inmates would be released. What would happen to murderers, rapists and the like from then on? “Self-governance and care, not cops,” would be running things, so it is anyone’s guess.
There would be no war. Combined with no borders, this is a standing invitation to our adversaries to invade, topple our weakened government and declare us conquered. Dominion would go to whichever modern-axis country gets here first.
Given the DSA’s heavy Islamist overtones, our new “leaders” probably would be tickled to see the many-tentacled Iran and its proxies win the race.
We would make for a sizable conquest in the jihadis’ quest to establish a worldwide caliphate, complete with Shariah, beheadings and the total annihilation of the unalienable rights that made the DSA possible in the first place.
I could go on, but you get the idea. In these next 14 weeks, if there is one question you ask midterm candidates, make it about their ideal America. Chances are that if they are honest, you will learn that the answer is no America at all.
• Anath Hartmann is deputy commentary editor for The Washington Times.
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