A recent letter in the Concord Monitor (6-26-21) predicted that due to the “radical Republican legislative agenda” there “will be no sanctioned Democratic 2024 presidential primary election in NH.” Really?
The recently approved budget package that Governor Sununu signed into law increased spending on most line items while also lowering taxes. Quite impressive. But while we knew Dems would reflexively oppose anything that the current legislature passed, many independent-minded citizens support this noteworthy achievement.
Progressives are unhappy about associated policy provisions, like providing a measure of school choice for poorer families with unique circumstances—but that is no surprise. Or the provision restricting abortions after 24 weeks. But since when is aligning our statutes with those of New York or Massachusetts considered “radical?”
The truth of the matter is that many Democratic National Committee members have long sought to take “First in the Nation” away from New Hampshire. They say that New Hampshire is too white to retain its special status. Obsessed with identity politics, the DNC will do what it will do. So do not blame the GOP if Dems take away FITN.
Cast your minds back to Feb. 11, 2020. Joe Biden finished fifth in the NH Primary with 8% of the vote. He abandoned his Granite State supporters that very afternoon to fly to South Carolina. Kamala Harris received 129 votes, her disastrous campaign having earlier imploded—its most memorable moment occurring when she slammed Biden during a debate for hanging out with segregationist Democrat senators.
Neither Biden nor Harris subsequently campaigned again in New Hampshire—in contrast to the GOP ticket which made several trips to the Granite State. So one wonders how much Biden or Harris will advocate for our FITN status.
Who’d have thought on that Feb. 11 that Biden and Harris would actually become president and vice-president? But Dems needed a viable alternative to the then front-runner—a 78-year-old avowed socialist from Vermont recovering from a heart attack.
But back to South Carolina and poisonous identity politics. Apparently, in exchange for the support of S.C. Rep. Jim Clyburn, Biden publicly committed to choosing a woman of color as his running mate. Given that the positions of President and Vice President are somewhat important, why would anyone exclude around 95% of potential running mates from consideration? Especially when one is pushing 79 years of age?
So now we have an unpopular quasi-Marxist vice-president who is all but certain to become our 47th president. Probably sooner rather than later.
A quiescent media establishment covers up Biden’s obvious and glaring cognitive disfunction. The poor man becomes increasingly addled before our very eyes. If it were Donald Trump instead of Biden who fell three times while ascending the stairs to Air Force One that imagery would have made for a never-ending video loop on cable news.
But foreign news services still do journalism and the rest of the world watches with horror.
There is little doubt that the GOP will recapture Congress next year, whether Harris has taken over by then or not. Consider history. Horrified by the prospect of Hillary-Care after two years of Bill Clinton’s administration, voters flipped 54 congressional seats to Republicans in 1994. In 2010, after two years of Barack Obama and horrified by the prospect of Obama-Care, voters flipped 63 seats to Republicans.
Even the sainted Franklin Delano Roosevelt was spanked by the voters during his second term in 1938, after his policies led to a worsening of the Great Depression in 1937. Voters were also incensed at FDR’s plan to pack the Supreme Court, as he sought to add justices so his New Deal policies would go unchallenged. The Dems lost 72 congressional seats.
And yet earlier this year congressional Democrats similarly sought to enlarge and pack the Supreme Court—apparently clueless as to history.
Voters do give progressives power from time to time. But progressives can’t help being who they are. Hence the above backlash in 1938, 1994, and 2010. There are plenty of other examples. New Hampshire’s legislature was the only one nationally to flip in 2020, after Granite Staters recoiled at a truly radical Democrat agenda.
When will progressives acknowledge that their focus on identity politics is why the DNC won’t support New Hampshire’s FITN? (As opposed to blaming GOP legislative tax cuts etc. and pointing fingers at Republicans.)
It’s called “personal responsibility”— a popular Republican notion once embraced by folks of all stripes.
But apparently, such a notion is now … well … “radical.”
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(State Representative Mike Moffett of Loudon is a retired professor and former Marine Corps officer. He is Vice-Chair of the House Committee on State-Federal Relations and also serves on the House Education Committee.)
