Democrats have a herd mentality problem, and it is playing out in the debates over Joe Biden’s praise of segregationists as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s controversial comments over the southern border.
Not content to put forward the reasonable alternative to an unpopular president, Democrats are wrangling their steer back into the herd, forcibly branding him with the letters “PROGRESSIVE,” while also following a freshman congresswoman galloping off a cliff.
We’ve seen this script before. Too fearful of the online mob, politicians bounce from controversy to controversy, hoping to appease their base, all the while distracting from their actual agenda. It was the story of the Tea Party era during the Obama years. And today’s Democrats seem hellbent on replicating that clown-car era.
Consider the fighting that erupted over Biden’s recent comments. Filtered through social media, a civil war is breaking out. A debate over whether it is right or to work across the aisle with Republicans has now devolved into a conversation about Biden’s past friendship with segregationists. Simply put, it’s a mess.
Biden bears responsibility for invoking a past relationship that is not merely politically incorrect, but (by today’s standards) largely indefensible. Still, rather than allowing Biden—who so far looks to have the best shot at getting the hated Donald Trump out of the White House—to maintain a somewhat opaque (if not contradictory) stances, “woke Twitter” wants to make Biden clarify all of his past and current positions and statements.
For obvious reasons he would prefer to be all things to all people. It doesn’t seem likely he will be permitted to pull that off.
And so, he faces a Catch-22: Appeasing progressives may help him win the primary, but it will undermine his electoral chances in November of 2020. Then again, he can’t win the election without first winning the nomination.
With hot-button issues such as abortion and reparations constantly surfacing, Biden is in danger of either looking like a weak flip-flopper or suffering a political death by a thousand cuts—or both. That’s not a place for a party to be.
Meanwhile, the most prominent member of woke Twitter—AOC—is only making things worse for the Democrats. Luckily for her, though, the herd has her back.
As you know by now, she compared the situation on the southern border with a “concentration camp.”
Although it is true that the term “concentration camp” is far more expansive than the Nazi Holocaust, it is the first thing any normal person thinks of when they hear the term. Take, for example, CNN political commentator Angela Rye, a progressive, who declared: “In 1933, there were concentration camps. In 1941 they were death camps, and that is where we are going if our consciences are not pierced.”
The connection is obvious, and not just because people intuitively hear “Holocaust” when someone says “concentration camp,” but also because AOC went on to say that “’Never again’ means something.’” Indeed, she’s right—“never again” hearkens to the notion that we will never abide another Holocaust.
Am I to believe that AOC just coincidentally used not one, but two, terms that suggest a link between the Holocaust with Trump’s current border policy? In this regard, AOC reminds me of Trump—I’m not sure whether we should take her literally or seriously. What is more, she is guilty of changing the subject from the plight of children to herself (hmmm, who else does that remind me of?). Yet, her supporters will defend her to the hilt.
The final part of the story involves the fact that so many blue checkmarks—the kinds of people who aren’t willing to give Biden a pass on his past—are seeking to make excuses for AOC. It’s a herd mentality that only serves to enable her to become more and more out of touch and to spark more and more wedge-issue controversies for Biden (or whoever wins the nomination) to contend with.
The “white knighting” for AOC was most egregious in the form of the shaming that Meet The Press host Chuck Todd received after he dared to criticize her for distracting from the plight of people at the border.
The message is pretty clear: If you dare to stray from the progressive line to win over moderates or endorse bipartisan civility, you will be attacked. If you dare to criticize the dangerous or incorrect things AOC says, there will be consequences—the mob will come after you and shame you.
And what will they have to show for enforcing this progressive conformity? The end result may well be the re-election of Donald J. Trump.
