Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is to try the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different outcome. Talleyrand, the early 19th Century French diplomat, might have added that those who do so have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing. So the democrats are behaving similarly with developing issues in ways they think will sweep them back to power in 2018 and especially 2020. The Democrats promise to raise taxes and some are proposing to disband ICE, the federal agency charged with hunting down illegal aliens and deporting them to their countries of origin.
The politics of increasing taxes
When President Trump signed the tax reform bill, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi famously said that the results would be “crumbs” for the working and middle classes. Those "crumbs” have proven to be quite substantial indeed, in the form of increased wages, benefits, bonuses, and economic growth. As a result, the tax reform measure has become wildly popular with Americans.
Undeterred, according to Forbes, the Democrats have rolled out a plan that would largely repeal and replace the tax reform law, hiking taxes to pay for an infrastructure rebuilding program. The Democrats have forgotten the lesson of the 1984 election in which their nominee, Walter Mondale, famously promised to raise taxes and then went on to experience a 49 state blow out.
And while we’re at it, let’s eliminate ICE
The Daily Caller is reporting that some Democratic operatives believe that a real killer issue would be to eliminate ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is charged with finding illegal aliens and sending them back to their homelands. The Democrats see this activity as an affront and want it stopped, especially in California, which has declared itself a sanctuary state in defiance of federal law.
The problem is that the Republicans have gotten quite a bit of mileage accusing Democrats of caring more about illegal aliens than they do citizens of the United States. The suspicion has been that the left would like to attract as many lower educated, unassimilable migrants as possible, make them citizens in one fell swoop as part of “immigration reform” and thus seize political power forever.
Donald Trump was elected president partly on that fear.
The bottom line
The bottom line is that the Democratic Party, rather than heading for the middle and attempting to actually win elections in the style of the 1990s version of Bill Clinton, is lurching to the far left. By so doing they are playing right into Donald Trump’s hands and are setting themselves to occupy the political wilderness for at least the next generation.