America is in distress because the Democratic Party is on life support.
There was a time when bipartisanship was the rule rather than the exception. Now the polarization in America is so extreme that anything that comes close to bipartisanship is derided and dismissed.
The breath of fresh air comes from Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Despite being protested against, harassed, and shamed by his own party, he has stood his ground. If there is one man who is saving the Democratic Party, it is Senator Joe Manchin. It really reinvigorates a lot of Americans who have seen the Democratic Party fall prey to the extremists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the Senate and AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib in Congress. They are the main reason the Democratic Party is on life support. They have caused oxygen desaturation in the Democratic Party. The carbon dioxide hasn’t only increased in the atmosphere but in the lungs of the Democrats.
Michael Shellenberger, in his new book San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities,” highlights the failures and derangements in San Francisco, but it is applicable and prevalent throughout Democrat-controlled states and cities. Homelessness, for example, had its biggest jump between 2007-2020 in New York, California, and Massachusetts. Shoplifting, looting, and shootings have proliferated. Overdoses have skyrocketed.
The abject failure of “Bail Reform” was no more apparent than the case of Darrell Brooks who, after running over a woman with his SUV, then freed from jail on an inappropriately low bail for doing so, killed 6 people and wounded 60 more when he drove the very same vehicle through a Christmas Parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The media’s coverage of the carnage was sparse and purposefully dampened down. This was so as to not point out the glaring hypocrisy and disgrace of the progressives’ darling legislation. The media might think it can cover for the mistakes and downward spirals of its friendly Democratic politicians but the American people have noticed and 2022 will make that perfectly clear.
Brett Stephens, in his November 24 op-ed entitled “Can Liberals Survive Progressivism?” puts it best: “…nowhere are dysfunctions more concentrated than in the very places that were supposed to have become beacons of progressive sunshine.” He further pointed out that “If you increase the incentives for bad behavior and reduce the ones for good, you will inevitably achieve catastrophic results.”
America is reaping the horrendous rewards of its fling with extreme progressivism. It is why America needs the intensive care unit. This was apparent but whitewashed and sanitized in the summer of 2020 under the excuse of the COVID pandemic when riots, raging mobs, and church burnings were described as “peaceful protests.”
The “Defund the Police” campaign has “blown up” in the faces of all who pushed it. The turnaround is amazing. If there was one thing that hurt the Democratic Party the most, it was its “Defund the Police” efforts. It brought the Party way down.
Brett Stephens concludes, “The country won’t be safe (from them) until a more serious Democratic Party can set itself free from ideas that embarrass it and endanger us all.”
Senator Joe Manchin should lead the way.
Dr. Joe Frager is Chairman of the Israel Advocacy Commission for the Rabbinical Alliance of America; Chairman of the Executive Committee of American Friends of Ateret Cohanim; Dean at Kollel Ayshel Avraham; Executive Vice President of the Israel Heritage Foundation; and a physician in practice for 41 years.
