Democrats have received yet another warning about the party’s extreme leftward drift, this time from outgoing moderate Democrat Representative Stephanie Murphy of Florida.
Speaking to Politico, which described the Vietnamese immigrant as a woman who “pioneered the playbook that helped Democrats flip the House in 2018, Murphy said the party’s insistence of marching lockstep with the ideological demands of its far-out left threatened victory in the future.
Message: Continue heading in that direction at your own risk.
You’re “Anti-Immigrant”
Politico asked Murphy what frustrated her about the enforcement of hidebound party orthodoxy.
Her answer is unsurprising: Ideological nutjobs immediately smearing an ally for even the slightest disagreement.
“I think in Washington, instead of having substantive policy conversations and negotiations, oftentimes, when there’s disagreement, people go immediately to maligning your motivations,” Murphy said.
Kate’s Law, which would punish certain illegals for attempting to re-enter the United States, is an example.
“When it came to Kate’s Law, I believe in immigration and comprehensive immigration reform and the ability for people to immigrate to the United States in a legal way,” Murphy said:
But I also believe in law and order and ensuring that we hold people who commit crimes accountable.
I was one of a few Democrats who voted for Kate’s Law, including my local former sheriff, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.). She also voted for it. I think it was a bill that people saw as a law and order kind of bill.
What happened? The Open Borders Lobby shifted into attack mode:
[T}]e immigrant groups immediately went to “You’re anti-immigrant.” But look at me. I’m a refugee. I’m an immigrant. I’m not anti-immigrant. I found that they were maligning my motivations as opposed to trying to seek to understand my intentions and to understand the policy concerns I had. We had one meeting that got so heated and passionate that the nun who was there had to stand up and ask everybody to settle down, calm down the hostilities. I mean, thank God for that.
And that, Murphy continued, “became what I discovered to be a trend, that a lot of these outside groups that purport to represent a specific interest are just an extension of leadership. Instead of purely focusing on their issue area, they bleed into just advocating for whatever Democratic leadership wants. And it’s true on the Republican side, too.”
The same thing occurred with other legislation.
Environmental groups demanded that congressmen such as Murphy support the Build Back Better Act before the text “had been put out.”
And their demands came with a threat, Murphy said:
“If you don’t support that, we are going to delist you. We won’t support you. We won’t endorse you.” And when you ask them back, “Well, what’s in the Build Back Better Act that you are so supportive of,” they couldn’t define it specifically because nobody had seen the text. But we had the text for the infrastructure bill and not a peep out of them advocating for that.
Elected in 2016, Murphy said the Democrat leadership won’t tolerate dissent. It wants members to toe the party line, not vote for the best interests of their districts. Before Democrats won back the majority in the House of Representatives in 2018, “there was a lot more tolerance for, ‘Do what you need to do to hold your seat and come back because we’re trying to build towards majority.’”
No more:
I think in this term and the last two terms with us being in the majority, that tolerance eroded a bit. It’s unfortunate because I think in order for us as Democrats to hold the majority, you have to be able to win in seats like mine and in redder seats. That means you have to cut your members a little bit of leeway to vote their district. This march toward party unity is going to be detrimental to our ability to lead the agenda for this country. And the alternative is really not great. The Republican Party is starting to feel more like a cult of personality than it is a political party. Where are the Reagan conservatives? I don’t want to hand this country and the agenda over to a party that’s trying to dismantle democracy. But I also don’t want to hand my party over to the faction that wants to dismantle capitalism. I think both of those forces are dangerous and detrimental to this country.
The attacks from radical lefitst groups on moderates, Murphy said, is driving them to quit Congress. “In this term with the fight over infrastructure and BBBA, we had Democratic groups spending millions of dollars against moderate members,” she said:
Why as Democrats we would take money that we need to reserve for the on year to help win and grow the majority, why we would spend that money against our own members is really baffling.
Previously Warned
Democrat strategists have been warning since Biden’s suspicious victory in 2020 that crackpot leftists, with messages such as “Defund the Police,” are driving the party off an electoral cliff.
In January, Democrat political strategist James Carville warned that hard-left “progressives” are about 10 percent of Democrats, but the alienating message they send is what the country hears.
Speaking about the radicals who oppose and hate West Virginia’s moderate Democrat senator, Joe Manchin, Carville said trying to defeat him is counterproductive. Carville will support him even if he isn’t perfect.
“Look, I’m a liberal Democrat,” he said:
But some of these people bitching about Manchin can’t see political reality straight. Six percent of adults in this country identify as “progressive.” Only 11 or 12 percent of Democrats identify as progressive. So let’s just meet in the middle and say something like 7 or 8 percent of the country agrees with the progressive left. This ain’t a goddamn debate anymore. Someone like Manchin is closer to the mainstream than a lot of these people think, and pretending like he isn’t won’t help the cause.
The Real Clear Politics average of generic congressional polls shows the GOP with a 3.7-point lead over Democrats, 46.8-43.1
The GOP has prevailed in the majority of polls, sometimes by as many as 13 points.
hat tip: Daily Caller
