Democrat congressmen are terrified they might “get creamed” in 2022 if they don’t change their incendiary leftist rhetoric.
Election day losses brutalized the party of ice cream hoarder and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not because it lost control of the House of Representatives. It didn’t.
The shocking result was the loss of districts the party won in 2018 after President Trump carried them in 2016. As well, the GOP will add 10 new women members of Congress.
During a phone call with Pelosi, angry underlings delivered a strong message: Shut up about socialism, free health care, and hating cops.
Big Losses
The final Red-Blue division in the House is undetermined. But early damage estimates for the party that pollsters said would enjoy a blue wave were not encouraging.
“In perhaps their highest profile triumph,” the Associated Press reported, “Republicans finally defeated 15-term Rep. Collin Peterson from a rural Minnesota district that backed President Donald Trump in 2016 by 31 percentage points, Trump’s biggest margin in any Democratic-held district.”
Michelle Fischbach, the former lieutenant governor, defeated Peterson, a relatively conservative Democrat.
But Peterson was just the beginning, AP reported:
The latest Democratic incumbent to fall was freshman Rep. Abby Finkenauer of northeastern Iowa, who lost to GOP state Rep. Ashley Hinson.
The other defeated Democrats — all freshmen — included Reps. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala, health secretary under President Bill Clinton, in adjacent South Florida districts.
Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico and Kendra Horn in Oklahoma also lost. All had won surprising 2018 victories in districts Trump carried decisively in 2016.
Not surprisingly, Pelosi’s spear carriers in the House aren’t happy. Rhetoric perceived to be anti-American, they told her in a caucus phone call, is out of control.
No More “Defund the Police”
Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina was unequivocal, Politico reported. If “we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win,” he warned.
Such was the emotion of the call that one Democrat who went down in flames turned on the tear ducts.
Soon-to-be-former Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell of Florida “started crying while urging Democrats to remain unified and not ‘tweet’ attacks at one another,” Politico reported.
The congresswoman also complained that people can’t pronounce her name, the Washington Post’s Erica Werner tweeted, but in any event, Pelosi’s reminder that Joe Biden had beaten the president and Democrats retained the House didn’t do much good.
Others were clearly not appeased by Pelosi touting the wins for Democrats on Tuesday night — including Biden’s potential victory — saying that didn’t make up for the disappointment of missing a shot at taking over the Senate and losing at least half a dozen Democratic centrists in the House.
Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, the Post and Politico reported, is furious.
“A Blue Dog whose race remains uncalled though she declared victory this week, grew angry as she warned her party against some of the rhetoric she argued hurt moderate Democrats like herself, saying the election results were a ‘failure,’” the webzine reported:
“No one should say ‘defund the police’ ever again,” Spanberger said on the call, according to two sources. “Nobody should be talking about socialism.”
Spanberger also warned that if Democrats kept up their tactics in 2022: “We will get f—— torn apart.”
Spanberger was one of several battleground Democrats who faced a barrage of GOP attack ads accusing her of attempting to “defund the police” after she voted for a policing reform bill this summer amid a national reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism.
Too Little, Too Late
Clyburn and Spanberger are likely too late. Pelosi has allowed radicals who openly advocate cop-hatred and socialism to gain power in the party, as one tweet about the problem showed.
“It might be a bit too late for Democrats to distance themselves from socialism,” the tweet said.
Underneath was the cover of Rolling Stone for March 2018. It featured a smiling Pelosi with the two most prominent hate-America radicals her party has warmly embraced: Anti-Christian radical Ilhan Omar and socialist Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Below that was another magazine cover, this one Vanity Fair’s December issue, featuring Ocasio-Cortez, also known as Occasional-Cortex.
“For better or worse this is what Democratic party has decided to stake its future on. Good luck stopping that train,” the tweet said.
And the cover? “AOC: Her Next Four Years”
Four years? The next election is in two years, and that’s what concerns a Democrat congressman who spoke to CNN: “If we don’t get our act together, we’re going to get creamed in 2022.”
H/T: Legal Insurrection
