To show you how long ago that was ... I was born in February of 1960.
Posted on 02/10/2015 1:21:57 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The unofficial death of the moderate American Democrat went largely unnoticed last week.
Tim Ryan — a once-strident champion of the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, filled with moderate Catholic Democrats whose issues are still firmly pocketbook-based — penned an op-ed saying he now supports abortion.
The Ohio congressman, who once sat on the board of the Democrats for Life in America advocacy group, made that surprising reversal as he contemplates a run for U.S. Senate.
You see, plenty of Jacksonian Democrats remain in his district — and all across the country, for that matter — but no tolerance for them exists in the Washington-based national Democratic Party.
No money exists for them from elite progressive funders, either.
Ryan's decision opens up the floodgates for campaign cash from national Democrats' purses, now that he shed that old-fashioned tie to his moral compass.
And groups such as Emily's List, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, which are funding spigots for Democrats, can deploy that cash and those all-important volunteers to help Ryan win whatever office he seeks.
It was a spigot that was never opened to him before his departure from the blue-collar ideals he brought to office in 2004.
“It always strikes me as funny that the folks on TV call Republicans ‘extreme,' and pretty much ignore that Democrats have left no room for people like me in my own party,” said Yvonne, a Youngstown native who did not want to give her last name.
To Yvonne, who has lived all of her 30-plus years in that eastern Ohio city, being a Democrat is like listing your religion, the part of town where you grew up, and the school you attended.
“It's a part of my identity,” she said, adding after a pause: “Or was.”
When Ryan made his announcement last week, the national press offered no questions or headline-grabbing adjectives — just praise.
That was an interesting departure from the media reaction when then-candidate Cory Gardner, a Colorado congressman running for U.S. Senate last year, changed from support to non-support of “personhood.”
“Bombshell,” “extremist” and “cheap election-year stunt” were the words in some of the milder headlines.
Gardner moved to the center. Ryan moved to the left wing.
Ryan was praised. Gardner was hammered.
Now think about that for a moment: One politician moved to his party's wing, not its center, and it was as if a tree fell in a forest — with no one listening. Another politician moved to his party's center, and hair collectively caught fire.
Just five years ago, 110 pro-life Democrats were in the House, around a dozen in the U.S. Senate. Today, fewer than five are in the House, and two in the Senate.
Just five years ago, coincidentally, Democrats held majorities in both chambers.
They lost those majorities because they lost touch with their districts.
Yes, gerrymandering played a part. Yet that is far from the whole story, a story no one talks about — or, if they do, they don't address the problem. The fact is, Democrats are losing or excluding evangelicals, blue-collar types, Jacksonians and moderates, not only from feeling welcome in the party but from filling the Democrat bench to run for or to hold local offices.
That is happening not just in Ohio but all across the country.
So while the story is told, over and over, about how the extreme right wing of the Republican Party is pushing people out, you never once hear the word “extreme” associated with the left or progressive wings of the Democratic Party.
Is it because those wings' values are shared by many in the press who report on politics, so they view any move to the left as normal and sensible? Probably.
Is that good for Democrats? Probably not, because it forces them deeper into their party's coastal, urban and academic enclaves, and further out of touch with Middle America.
Eventually, if not already, that will make them the party of the elite.
Washington can't see this. Big-money Democrats can't see this.
But Yvonne, the Youngstown Democrat, can see it — and so can a lot of other Yvonnes and their families, neighbors and co-workers, all across the country.
To show you how long ago that was ... I was born in February of 1960.
Old Hubert was a liberal Minnesota Democrat, yet today he seems to have more in common with Ronald Reagan than the current Democratic Party.
Judging by Obama’s two election victories, I’d say the Dems have simply realized faster than Republicans that “Middle America” is just a shadow of its former self. While the recent Republican victories are encouraging, there is no ignoring the fact that Obama won two elections (the second being much more frightening than the first - he was a proven failure).
The fact is that this country is much less “Middle America” than it was even six years ago; demographic shifts don’t bode well.
Great article, Salena. Thank you.
He was a proven failure, both domestically and internationally, but he still offered more free stuff.
The successful liberal takeover of the public school system became blatantly obvious with the reelection of the Kenyan Muslim. Gruber was spot on when he outed the stupidity of the American voter. The unrelenting brain washing of our youth by "educators" (that is an Orwellian interpretation) is destroying the American Way of Life at an increasingly rapid rate.
Gruber was right about voters’ stupidity, but a bigger factor in the destruction of our American way of life (I guess they are related) is the lack of a new generation of “Americans”. Towns in NJ that may be 75% “white” have school-age populations that are 75% non-American (of mostly non-white shades).
People should ignore projections about whites being a minority by 2050; it is much more likely to occur by 2020. Over a dozen years ago one of my children was born in an area in NJ that is officially “white”; of a dozen babies there, most were Hispanic, with one each for white, black, and Asian.
“He was a proven failure, both domestically and internationally, but he still offered more free stuff.”
How much “free stuff” is worth losing your children or your life in a welfare hatchery/hive? While his base could care less about international affairs, they must watch even the slums deteriorate; violent crime is up, and they themselves are usually the casualties.
You make a strong point. Demographics is not on our side. A year ago when my younger daughter had her first baby, it was obvious visiting the maternity ward that I was funding the process for about 80% of the occupants. And this wasn’t in the minority geographic section of town.
Both parties are doing this.
The important thing is, we need to be the ones to take back America, by being for American jobs, and American growth.
Right now.
We cannot wait, because eventually the Democrats will act, and if we’re not already on board by then, the GOP will cease to hold power, forever.
It is time for the GOP to be for jobs. American jobs.
I think the media downplays this because if people knew the truth there would be an immediate reaction (at least politically). Here in NJ, these hospitals are in areas where they haven’t been closed yet by the flood of “charity care” to illegals in the urban cores; the Americans in the suburbs are watching this unfold in front of their eyes as those same illegals now go to the remaining suburban hospitals to “birth their babies” (for free).
Years ago it was projected that Hispanics would pass blacks in numbers by 2010; after the 2000 census the government conceded that it had already happened. Besides the higher birthrate, there is a constant flow of reinforcements - and nobody is interested in enforcing immigration laws. If they did, we would have ghost towns, empty schools, and more closed businesses (at least here in NJ, where twice as many Americans are moving out than moving in); it seems Pelosi’s narrow view (that welfare somehow contributes to an economy) is determining policy here.
There is no room for moderates in either party anymore.
To paraphrase a famous conservative: "Moderation in defense of America is no virtue."
Moderates are incapable of understanding the stakes.
They forgot the rest of the headline…”but diluting middle America with socialist loving illegals and their offspring”.
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