“The era of big government is over” – Bill Clinton, 1996.

That may be the last sensible thing any elected Democrat ever said. Of course that was a time when sensible Democrats like Evan Bayh, Sam Nunn, and Joe Lieberman were amongst the ranks but those days are gone. Beginning with the election, or as Democrats are fond of saying, the “selection”, of George W Bush the Democrats have been veering left. There was a brief moment in 2001 when the attack on our homeland caused the parties to set aside their differences and focus instead on the growing dangers of the outside world. In fact some of the most impassioned arguments for the Iraq war on the Senate floor came from Democrats Hillary Clinton and Jay Rockefeller. But that unity and that passion would be short lived. As soon as the war became difficult and many Americans became frustrated, the Democrats seized the opportunity and began polarizing the country for political expediency, and that polarization is even more pronounced today.

Over the last decade, the Democratic Party has used every issue possible to divide this country along every societal line; age, race, sex, income, etc. The Democrats have also used every single procedural weapon to push through partisan legislation to the extent of lying on the Senate floor, lying to the American people, and creating and employing the fourth “regulatory” branch of government when Congress opposed them. The Democratic Party has moved so far left over the last decade that their ranks are thinning and their constituencies are dwindling. It’s more than a little embarrassing that the current field of Democrat POTUS candidates are all older, white career politicians, and outside of Julian Castro and Cory Booker, their bench is very weak. By comparison, the GOP is flush with young, talented people including the current field of POTUS candidates but also including folks like Susanna Martinez, Mia Love, Paul Ryan, Raul Labrador, and Trey Gowdy. The Democrats can’t even come close to matching this abundance of young talent. But what is even more perilous for the Democrats is their shrinking base. Their pandering over the last several years has emboldened a few of the more vocal minorities, which is now causing problems for them by continually having to serve more and more of their extreme demands. Just in the last couple of years the Democrats have angered the unions, a bedrock constituency, by appeasing the environmentalists and not approving the Keystone Pipeline. Also, via the fourth branch of government, manufacturing and mining jobs are disappearing and as a consequence so are even more union jobs. I also think that the #blacklivesmatters movement, which is literally taking over the Democratic podium this campaign season, has deeper roots than many want to admit. I think the movement has more to do with the sad plight many black families find themselves in largely as a result of government policies over the last 50 years. Policies of which they have been voting for, and of which were promised to “help” them. These policies have failed them and their community and I think their frustration is being misread to be an anti cop movement, which again is angering the unions. And now, on top of the many failed social and economic justice programs is the open border policies and legalization efforts the Democrats are pushing, which will only serve to flood the already crowded low skilled labor market and drive wages down. Black youth unemployment is over 50% and that will only get worse until we bring new solutions to the table and stop the progressive Democrats from “helping”.

The Democrats have painted themselves into a corner by their zeal for power and control and their incessant pandering to the smallest of grievances over the last several years. According to Real Clear Politics, 63% of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, and I highly doubt that that those people are hoping this country would be even more polarized and regulated. I think the most obvious example of how far left the Democrats have gone is the fact that the rival candidate to the Democrat front runner is an admitted socialist and not even a member of the party. From abortion, to immigration, to foreign policy, tt is time to define the Democrats positions just as they are, tenuous and extreme.