It used to be said that the Democrats were the “party of the common man.”
Now they’re the party of the uncommon man.
Very uncommon.
If you want men in women’s sports, criminal aliens not deported, a 24/7 fixation on race, or a stance in favor of government waste, the Democrats have a champion for you.
Just consider Maine’s Democratic governor Janet Mills at a White House event last week. Defiantly locking horns with President Donald Trump, she brazenly told him “See you in court!” Her remark went viral, with radical leftists exclaiming “You go, girl!”
Only, she was defending the practice of men (aka “transgenders”) competing in women’s sports. Note here that in our polarized country in which it’s hard getting large majorities to agree on anything, almost 80 percent of Americans support Trump’s position. Why, even 69 percent of Democrats agree with the president, that men should be barred from women’s athletics. (It’s sort of a Captain Obvious issue.)
Don’t think Mills is on the right side of history, either. After all, polls indicate that support for Trump’s position has increased 12 points in just the last two years. In fairness, though, Mills act was bold — reminiscent of fellow Democrat George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.
“Trump’s Superpower”
But it’s not just the “trans” issue. Googling “Democrats defend the indefensible” brings up a striking number of results. In 2018, for example, commentator Ben Shapiro spoke of “Trump’s Superpower.” That is, “He can make Democrats defend anything.”
That may not be an exaggeration, either. Just consider a Creators article late last week titled “Defending the Indefensible.” It outlines Democrats’ frenzied opposition to Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) revelations. And to grasp how outrageous this opposition is, consider some of those discoveries. As American Thinker related February 5, providing examples of USAID’s squandering of taxpayer money:
- Paid $1,999,900 to Asociacion Lambda to strengthen transgender organizations in Guatemala.
- Paid $1,499,999 to Grupa Izadiji to advance LGBTQ+ diversity in Serbia.
- …In the years since the October 7 attack on Israel, USAID sent around $420 million to the Gazans and West Bankians without any assurance that it would be kept from terrorist organizations, including Hamas. And indeed, much of it went straight to those organizations.
- Canceled $237 million in contracts for work in Afghanistan but still paid $61 million for work that was not performed and $74 million for work with questionable results.
- Directly and indirectly funneled $200 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which introduced COVID to the world.
- …Paid for a “trans” care clinic in Vietnam.
- …Paid $500,000 to expand atheism in Nepal.
Thou Shalt Not Question Waste
As for the aforementioned Creators article, author Laura Hollis mentions several more outrages. Our government:
- funded the education of a man tied to the 9/11 terrorists;
- gave $15 million to the Taliban for condoms;
- inexplicably gave $2 billion in EPA money to a group founded by election denier Stacey Abrams; and
- wasted tens of billions in EPA funds, purposely, during the Biden administration’s waning days — just so they wouldn’t be available to the incoming Trump administration.
Despite this, the government couldn’t find money to update the processing of federal employee retirement applications. It’s “still being done by several hundred individuals underground, in an old Pennsylvania mine,” writes Hollis — using 1950s technology.
As these damning revelations have become better known, support for DOGE has increased, says Hollis. Regardless, she continues,
many Democrats and other left-leaners are outraged at the exposure of these unnecessary expenditures rather than at the waste itself. Commentators defend them, arguing that they’re not wasteful or fraudulent since they were all “approved.” (Um — that’s the problem.) Organizations have brought lawsuits in friendly federal courts, asking for — and getting, in some cases — injunctions preventing Trump from cutting certain spending or mandating that he reinstate it.
Americans have been taken aback by these reactions.
First, it’s frankly shocking that anyone wouldn’t care about billions of dollars frittered away without accountability. And the Trump administration isn’t just targeting initiatives loved by the Left; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that he wants an 8% spending cut for the Department of Defense annually for the next five years and promised that the department will pass an audit within the next four. Why wouldn’t Democrats be pleased to see the military budget reduced and its spending transparent?
Learned Nothing?
There is an answer. And it’s not just that too many leftists react to anything Trump proposes like a vampire does to a cross. It’s also that this government spending long ago became a slush fund for the Democrats and their allies. The $2 billion to the Abrams group is one example. Another is that left-leaning media outlet Politico got $44 million from government subscriptions.
The fact, however, is that this Democratic opposition to common sense isn’t playing well in Peoria. Some Democrats realize this, too. Hollis mentions, for example, that former Democrat adviser Dan Turrentine warned that his party’s criticism of DOGE would alienate more voters.
(Other Democrats have cautioned against the party’s inordinate focus on race. And longtime Democratic strategist James Carville has complained about the Left’s “preachy females” and embrace of boutique issues.)
For sure, too, is that Democrats haven’t learned from history. In the 1990s, Democratic president Bill Clinton cut government jobs — just as Trump is doing now. Seeing which way the wind was blowing, he also cooperated with the GOP-controlled Congress and reduced spending growth. This led to years with federal budget surpluses. And the result was not just that he was a two-term president. He also now gets credit for those surpluses — even though Congress controls the purse strings and inspired the fiscal restraint.
But restraint, of any kind, doesn’t characterize today’s Democrats. They are now the party of the uncommon man, though they would deny this, unsure of what a man, or woman, is.
