It took them a little more than a month.
Since Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi reclaimed the gavel for the first time in nearly a decade, the Democrat Party has been riding high.
President Donald Trump lost the first round of the battle with Democrats over his planned border wall, ending the longest government shutdown in history a few weeks ago–with no wall funding, despite a promise not to make such a concession.
Pelosi, gloating, signed the three-week continuing resolution with eight different ceremonial pens and rubbed it in by framing herself as somehow equal to the president in terms of power–even though, constitutionally, practically, and by any other measure the legislative office of the Speaker of the House is inferior to the executive office of the President of the United States.
Meanwhile, Democrats throughout the party have been launching their presidential primary campaigns–vying for the shot at a one-on-one battle with Trump in the November 2020 general election–in speeches, media tours, social media blitzes, and stunts filled with missives at the president and red political meat for the Democrat base.
But the good times for Democrats have come to a screeching halt in the past few weeks. A raft of scandals involving racism, antisemitism, radicalism, allegations of sexual assault, and extreme views on a variety of issues has hit the Democrat Party hard as it slinks back into the limelight after a two-year period of GOP control of all levers of government in Washington and most state governments across the country.
These hurdles threaten the Democrat Party’s chances at a return to national power in 2020, with its rising stars and key players throughout the federal and state governments tangled in a web of problems that could cost Democrats the White House in two years and more deeply hurt the party in down-ticket races while tearing down fragile coalitions assembled by Democrat leaders desperate to put a check on Trump.
Trump has taken advantage of the Democrats’ misfortunes, first delivering a State of the Union address last week that received rave reviews from the public per post-speech polling, then hitting El Paso, Texas, on Monday evening for a rally where he bashed Democrats and the media as per usual but also began laying the groundwork for the core themes of 2020. Trump beat up the Democrats on these scandals and ripped his political opposition’s emerging extreme views on a variety of issues, all while celebrating a new poll that has him surging up at a 52 percent approval rating–the highest he’s had in years.
The scandals are far-reaching, and affect the highest levels of the party. The policy developments on everything from environmental issues to life to immigration are equally profound and deep-seated in the Democrat Party. How its leaders handle all of this will determine much in the way of whether voters will give Democrats a chance in the next presidential election and, perhaps more importantly in the meantime, affect their ability to be part of the governing conversation in Washington or govern states like Virginia where the entire party leadership is embroiled in scandal.
The Democrat Party’s streak of bad luck started in late January when Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, in the wake of the introduction of a late-term abortion bill from Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran that would allow abortions as late into pregnancy as when a mother is going into labor, advocated for infanticide.
In an interview with WTOP, the Democrat governor said:
This is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians, and the mothers and fathers that are involved. When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physician—more than one physician, by the way—and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non-viable
Northam, who was a doctor before running for office, added that even if a baby is born alive he or she would be “kept comfortable” until doctors and the mother decide whether to keep it alive–essentially offering up the choice to murder the child after he or she has been born:
If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. So I think this was really blown out of proportion. We want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions.
Northam’s extreme views on killing babies after they are born coincided with the New York legislature and Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo putting in place a new law in the state that guarantees a “fundamental right” to abortion. The radical law enshrines a “right” to an abortion through the third trimester of pregnancy up to and including during the giving of birth, among other extreme provisions. Cuomo has come under serious fire from all sides for backing it, and he took to the pages of the New York Times to write an op-ed defending himself, claiming he was an “altar boy” growing up and that his duty is to enforce the law, not his personal beliefs.
But it’s not just a couple of governors or a handful of state legislators who are embracing this radical view on abortion, where politicians are pushing policies that amount to murder of already-born children or abortion as mothers are giving birth: It’s the whole Democrat Party in Washington, at the direction of Pelosi, that has refused to allow votes on the House floor for four straight legislative days now on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act from Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO).
The legislation, which passed the House last Congress on a bipartisan basis, would afford various legal and health protections to babies born alive after failed abortions–including requiring them to be taken to a hospital and given medical care by health professionals. Republicans, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other top House GOP officials confirmed to Breitbart News, intend to seek unanimous consent to force a vote on the bill every day that the House is in session until Pelosi relents. For now, Pelosi–through her designated floor officials, other Democrats who are supportin her on this–has blocked the effort four times and is expected to continue to do so. Republicans are prepared to go all year if necessary.
“What the Democrats have done is taken this radically callous position toward life,” McCarthy said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel this weekend. “The president spoke about this trying to give voice to the voiceless in the State of the Union address. I thought he did a terrific job. But when you look at what the Democrats have done in New York and now in Virginia, talking about infanticide, I mean this is crazy what they are doing.”