The Democratic Party is in a Socialist Spiral

The “progressive” Left has put together an "Saturday Night Live" sketch of presidential campaign promises, and they are just getting started. The policy platform has become a twisted parody of itself: abolish private healthcare, enact 90 percent marginal income tax rates, and entertain the idea of federalizing huge swaths of our election system. Welcome to the new Democratic Party.

Each contender is so desperate to out-left the others, the party has completely abandoned middle America and taken a swan dive into an unabashed socialist agenda.

Democrats have a long tradition of wanting to reduce the rights of the individual and increase federal control over nearly every aspect of our lives. However, even the most die-hard progressive would admit the direction of the party has taken a sharp left turn.

Socialism used to be a dirty word in our politics, but not anymore. Democratic politicians saw the wave of grassroots enthusiasm in 2016 surrounding the self-declared socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and they were quick to jump on the bandwagon.

Leading the charge of opportunistic socialism is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. In the rare moments when Warren takes a break from lecturing us on her family history, she likes to go on a diatribe about the inherent evil of wealthy people. She recently suggested a massive tax on people with more than $50 million in assets but declined to share the details of the plan.

The Warren plan would include weaponizing the IRS once again to target a percentage of the country paying the tax with a mandatory “audit quota” every year. What percentage that is, we don’t know yet.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., told attendees of a CNN televised town hall that she plans to abolish private health insurance and enact a government-funded single-payer healthcare system. She did not share the details for how this plan will address our existing $122 trillion in U.S. unfunded liabilities, including federal debt, Medicare, Social Security, and federal employee and veteran benefits.

Not even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., proposed 70 percent income tax could pay off that kind of invoice. Of course, figuring out how to pay for these programs is a problem for another day. Telling progressive voters what they want to hear in any given political moment costs nothing at all.

Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., unveiled their ridiculous “Green New Deal” earlier this month. The plan would implement carbon taxes falling disproportionately on lower income households, costing as much as $325 a year in higher energy prices.

It would also increase the cost of manufacturing, shipping, and transportation for businesses. Want to guess how these companies plan to offset these costs? They will pass them on to customers in the form of price increases.

Similar policies have been tried in Europe, and they resulted in the massive "yellow vest" protests in France that erupted over a fuel tax increase. All over the world, radical environmentalism is crushing the working class. Perhaps Democrats are too busy hobnobbing with wealthy political donors living in coastal cities to notice.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to negotiate on basic border security puts human lives at risk, regardless of their nation of origin. A growing number of Democrats have called to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement entirely.

How could the modern Democratic Party possibly be so out of touch? Are they even aware of how far they have wandered to the left? It must be difficult to hear the collective disgust of the electorate over the sound of Democrats applauding themselves.

The new Democratic Party will stop at nothing to achieve greater federal control over energy, healthcare, income, human life, elections, and political speech. If that’s not totalitarian, I don’t know what to call it. We should take their campaign promises literally and seriously.

In doubling down on this radical rhetoric, the Democratic Party is making it clear they are not interested in connecting with America. They are only interested in controlling America.