The Republicans May Be in Trouble, but Have You Seen the Democrats?

By David French

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

There is no doubt that the GOP faces substantial challenges. Constitutional conservatives are battling populists — especially in Iowa — the short-lived romance with libertarians is on the rocks, and the donor class is so far discovering that it controls money, not votes. The Republican establishment has been so thoroughly disavowed that it’s largely clustering around one of the original Tea Party senators. Yet, rather than running a victory lap, the ascendant insurgents are tearing each other apart. In short, as my teenage daughter would say: “The struggle is real.”

But look on the bright side. We’re not Democrats. While the Trump-dominated GOP race is pulling most of the headlines, consider a few salient facts. First, the Democratic front-runner — the unquestioned establishment favorite — is facing a current, expanding FBI investigation. And, if the newest reports can be believed, Clinton is in deep trouble:

Emails from Hillary Clinton’s home server contained information classified at levels higher than previously known, including a level meant to protect some of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence, according to a document obtained by NBC News.

In a letter to lawmakers, the intelligence community’s internal watchdog says some of Clinton’s emails contained information classified Top Secret/Special Access Program, a secrecy designation that includes some of the most closely held U.S. intelligence matters.

There is now abundant, credible evidence that Clinton is in violation of both 18 U.S.C. Section 793 and 18 U.S.C. Section 1924 — criminal statutes that govern the handling of “national defense information” and “classified information.” Indeed, there is arguably no other human being in the United States who could commit the same acts without facing prosecution. If the Department of Justice refuses to prosecute, it could well face an existential crisis. If it can’t enforce the law impartially — on the powerful and powerless alike — why does it exist?

But illegal e-mails are the beginning, not the end of Clinton’s problems (I haven’t even mentioned Hillary’s potential influence-peddling using the Clinton Foundation.) She’s not just married to a man who occupies the gray area between Eliot Spitzer and Bill Cosby, there’s abundant evidence that even as Bill victimized her through his own infidelity, she helped protect both of their political careers by silencing and shaming his other victims. And thanks to liberal outlets like Vox and the Washington Post, a new generation of progressives is learning the ghastly details of Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual assaults.

In short, the Democratic party is starting to relive the worst aspects of the 1990s — the constant influx of new scandals combined with drip, drip, drip revelations from old scandals. Soon enough, the party will be focused on keeping their front-runner (and her key aides) out of jail.

None of this would be particularly alarming, if Democrats had any real alternative options. Unfortunately, the party’s current back-up plan relies on a grumpy socialist who just formally proposed what may well be the largest expansion of government in the history of the human race. How big is Bernie Sanders’s proposed leviathan? Feast your eyes on a $28 trillion government expansion:

Further, Bernie is proposing almost $20 trillion in new taxes. But even that tax increase can’t pay for “Medicare for all.” But no matter. I’m sure China can finance the rest.

And what’s the progressive response? It’s not enough. Tah-Nehisi Coates — to take one influential example — says that Sanders is going to perpetuate white supremacy unless he lards up his hopeless, never-going-to-pass single-payer plan with an additional hopeless, never-going-to-pass demand for reparations. Behold, the apocalyptic rhetoric:

If not even an avowed socialist can be bothered to grapple with reparations, if the question really is that far beyond the pale, if Bernie Sanders truly believes that victims of the Tulsa pogrom deserved nothing, that the victims of contract lending deserve nothing, that the victims of debt peonage deserve nothing, that that political plunder of black communities entitle them to nothing, if this is the candidate of the radical left — then expect white supremacy in America to endure well beyond our lifetimes and lifetimes of our children. Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy.

There it is, Democrats. Your establishment is in bed with a woman who reeks of corruption. Your progressive base is currently out-bidding itself in a sprint away from a market economy and toward a stifling, identity politics-obsessed socialism. You’ve lost so many state governments and congressional seats that the national party is weaker than any time since Reconstruction, and Republicans are the ones in crisis?

So take heart, frustrated conservatives. If the two parties are indeed driving — Thelma and Louise–style — headlong toward a cliff, it looks like the Democrats will get there first.