October 27, 2023
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Working-Class is Fully Aligning Behind the GOP – and Democrats Still Don’t Know Why They Keep Losing
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Working-Class is Fully Aligning Behind the GOP – and Democrats Still Don’t Know Why They Keep Losing
By Manzanita Miller
There was a time when the Democratic Party maintained a moderately believable facade as the voice of the middle-class, claiming to represent the interests of blue-collar families and rural America while condemning Wall Street elitists, but that political dichotomy belongs back in the 2010s.
The modern Democratic Party is now inarguably the party of coastal elitism, censorship, and distain for the working-class, with Democrats concentrating themselves into a few extremely wealthy regions with economic and political climates that do not represent the rest of country.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) is one Democrat who recognizes her party’s rapidly diminishing power among middle-class voters and has been sounding the alarm bell that her party risks losing these voters to Republicans if they don’t figure out how to reverse course.
Data circulated by Kaptur’s office shows of the ten wealthiest Congressional Districts in the country, nine are ruled by Democrats, while Republicans represent the vast majority of working-class Congressional Districts.
In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans won back the House of Representatives largely by continuing to make inroads in the most economically distressed districts, but also in middle-class districts. Democrats meanwhile managed to hang on to a majority of wealthy districts. If Democrats are unable to appeal to voters beyond a consolidated set of elite districts, their power will be weakened considerably in future elections.
Data from the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan research group, shows the trend of GOP representatives increasing their share of lower and middle-income Congressional Districts is something that has been accelerating since 2020.
In 2018, under Former President Trump, Democrats won the House back from Republicans, but since then Democrats have experienced a decline in overall votes in both consecutive elections, with the greatest losses occurring in economically distressed regions.
As shown below, Democrats strongly outperform Republicans in prosperous districts, narrowly outperform in comfortable districts, and lose to Republicans in the remaining districts but particularly in distressed and at-risk districts.
Economic Innovation Group
The data is crystal clear. The Democratic Party’s abandonment of the working-class and fixation on fringe issues is driving economically distressed voters to vote Republicans into office because they believe Republicans better represent their interests.
Another piece to this puzzle is the accelerating exodus of individuals from high-tax, crime-ridden states like California, Illinois and New York to safer and freer states like Florida, Montana, Idaho, and North Carolina. As I wrote last month, liberal states are losing population at an alarming rate, and when reapportionment occurs after the next census in 2030, Democrat states could find themselves without enough residents to hold onto their current number of Congressional seats.
This historic political alignment is prompting some Democrats to question, why is this happening? Rep. Marcy Kaptur who is circulating the data on working-class districts moving to the right said as much in an interview with Business Insider. “The other way you could look at it is: how is it possible that Republicans are representing the majority of people who struggle?”, Kaptur mused. This is a good question. How is it, that despite a barrage of social engineering from the mainstream press and globalist institutions insisting that Democrats represent ‘the little guy’, Democrats are consistently losing middle-class voters?
Political elites love nothing more than condescendingly remarking from their wealthy perches that Republicans are voting against their own economic interests, but the reality is a great wave of Americans are seeing the economic and cultural destruction caused by the globalist agenda.
Americans know that the Democratic slate of priorities such as releasing criminals into American cities, sewing racial and gender discord at every turn, refusing to close the border, taxing small businesses into oblivion, ensnaring ourselves in costly foreign wars, and refusing to expand energy independence are destroying the American Dream, and they realize they have the power to reverse this.
Democrats will continue to lose – and they should – if they continue to dismiss vast swathes of the country who do not share their self-serving and simplistic worldview. To answer Kaptur’s question with another question, how do Democrats expect to win a group of people they spend most of their time berating, dismissing, dehumanizing and refusing to understand?
Manzanita Miller is an associate analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/10/working-class-is-fully-aligning-behind-the-gop-and-democrats-still-dont-know-why-they-keep-losing/
Video: Speaker Johnson Delivers Inspirational Message For All Americans
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apR3kdLcgHw
Jonathan Turley: Jack Smith’s War on Free Speech: Attorney General Garland Should Rein in his Special Counsel
By Jonathan Turley
In 2016, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion overturning a conviction that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had seemed willing to secure at whatever cost to the rule of law. The case involved the prosecution of former governor Bob McDonnell (R-Va.), and the lead DOJ prosecutor was now-special counsel Jack Smith. The court dismissed the "tawdry tales" offered by the DOJ and declared that it was far more concerned with the damage that Smith was causing to the legal system with his virtually limitless interpretation of criminality.
The rebuke came to mind this week as Smith continued his unrelenting effort to gag former president Donald Trump before the 2024 election. Some of us have previously denounced the gag order issued by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan as unconstitutional, but even that order was more limited than what Smith had demanded.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a leading critic of Trump, has come out against Smith's efforts as an attack on the First Amendment.
Undeterred, Smith now wants to reinstate and expand the gag on Trump, citing Trump’s comments about his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who reportedly has been given an immunity deal by Smith. (Meadows’ lawyer disputes those reports.)
Smith wants to bar Trump from criticizing any witnesses as well as the prosecution and the court. That would include criticisms of former Vice President Mike Pence, currently one of his opponents for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, on his allegations linked to the earlier election.
Of course, gagging Trump will not materially affect the jury pool in the case. The Smith prosecutions are one of the biggest issues in this election. Moreover, it will not protect potential witnesses from withering criticism in the middle of an election that could turn on the public view of these cases.
Indeed, Smith has insisted on trying Trump before the election but now also wants to prevent him from speaking fully about the case before the election. Trump alone would be gagged, even as other politicians and pundits debate the merits of the cases and the countervailing allegations of the weaponization of the criminal justice system.
The prior order issued by Judge Chutkan is shockingly vague and overbroad. It bars Trump from "targeting" Smith or his staff or potential witnesses or the "substance of their testimony." It leaves an undefined and uncertain line as Trump campaigns on what he (and millions of citizens) view as the abuse of the criminal justice system to target President Biden's main political opponent.
Smith would add to the scope and ambiguity of the order in his latest motion. He is arguing that the court should “modify the defendant’s conditions of release ... by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case includes indirect messages to witnesses made publicly on social media or in speeches.”
Consider that for a moment: Smith would treat comments about witnesses, such as Meadows or Pence, as an effort to communicate with a witness.
Thus, Smith continues to litigate with a sense of utter abandon, showing his signature lack of concern for the implications of his legal arguments. It is the type of blind purpose that leads — as it did in the McDonnell case — to a unanimous ruling against you on an otherwise divided Supreme Court.
Ironically, it calls for a level of self-restraint that the trial court itself failed to show in the past. In sentencing a rioter in 2022, Judge Chutkan said that January 6 defendants “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.” She added that it was “a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
Despite clearly indicating with her comment that she believed Trump should be jailed (long before he was indicted), Chutkan has refused to recuse herself in this trial.
The lack of restraint shown by Smith only magnifies the lack of leadership from Attorney General Merrick Garland. The attorney general has repeatedly said that he would give the special counsel full authority and independence. However, that would not ordinarily mean that the attorney general would reduce himself to a mere pedestrian in this process.
This is an example of the ever-shrinking profile of Garland at the Justice Department. He has often told Congress that his knowledge of controversies is limited to what he has read in press accounts. Even beyond the special counsel’s investigations, he seems as proactive as a ficus plant.
Yet, this new gag motion presents a far more serious cost to Garland's passive role at the department. Smith is taking a hatchet to the First Amendment in these motions. In doing so, he is fueling anger over the perception of a weaponized criminal justice system.
Smith's deafening attacks on free speech are matched equally by Garland’s utter silence. The attorney general seems to believe that removing himself entirely from these investigations is more important than guaranteeing that his department does not become the enemy of core constitutional rights.
As Smith seems intent on inviting another unanimous Supreme Court opinion against his department, Garland may want to consider voicing a modicum of concern over the cost to free speech in Smith's efforts to gag Donald Trump.
To view online: https://themessenger.com/opinion/trump-gag-order-aclu-first-amendment-jack-smith-garland-doj