by Jim Simpson

The Democrats have won what is really a tepid victory. They were forced to run conservatives and moderates in many districts in order to succeed, hardly a ringing endorsement for the liberal policies that are sure to come. Their margin of control in both houses is puny.

Just the same, this is the beginning of the end of our Constitutional Republic as we know it. My contempt for the stupidity of the American voter, and the inept fecklessness of the Republican Party which allowed this to happen, knows no bounds. It is way past time for us to recognize that we have an active, widespread, domestic conspiracy – yes conspiracy damn it – within our very own borders, whose purpose it is to destroy this country from within, as Lenin predicted.

Who on earth would deliberately vote to have their already heavy tax burden increased, especially when almost a century of experience demonstrates that government absorbs taxes like a sponge, grows endlessly when provided new resources, and produces little of value to show for it? Who on earth would deliberately hand our sworn enemies, who have stated and demonstrated repeatedly their determination to kill us all, virtually certain victory in a war they could not hope to win in the long term, if only we stayed the course? Who, please tell me, who in their right mind would do this…deliberately??

The answer is people who have been so manipulated, so misled, so intimidated, so repeatedly lied to by Leftist media, academics and politicians, that they actually think they are doing the right thing.

Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s victory speech sounded nice and conciliatory. Everywhere, Democrat politicians are reassuring us that they want to work with Republicans and make it a “bipartisan” effort.

Let me tell you what is really in store. Democrats will, as usual, talk out of both sides of their mouths. While relentlessly pushing their radical leftist agenda, they will work overtime to simultaneously present a moderate image for these next two years, in an attempt to undermine any resurgent support for Republicans in 2008. They can depend on the media to shield them in this effort, and paint any Republican resistance to their agenda as “partisan gridlock.” All the while they will be working furiously in the background to consolidate their Congressional power and prepare for the victory of Hillary Clinton in 2008. And Hillary will be the Democrats’ candidate, mark my words.

I watched an interview last night with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. He was smiling; modest, soft-spoken, self-effacing, even charming. Am I talking about the same man? He sounded so nice, so reassuring that the Dems wanted to “move forward in a bipartisan spirit,” even I began to let down my guard. But barely a minute into the interview, he lied. He said that even the military wanted change in Iraq, and cited as evidence the opinions of Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. But he knows that these publications are owned by the very liberal Gannet News. They are not associated with the military in any way, but are instead yet another example of the Left insinuating itself into an organization with a known reputation, in order to manipulate public opinion by presenting itself as something it isn’t. So my final thought before switching off the TV in disgust was, “It starts already.”

Democrats won this election by trumpeting Republican failures, some of which unfortunately were real. But many were mere perceptions, assiduously developed over the years by the Democrats’ silent partners in the mass media, especially as regards the Iraq war. Everything from WMD and the al Qaeda connections to behavior of our troops in the field has been shamelessly lied about, distorted and attacked to an unprecedented degree by Western media. How does the voting public, most of whom of necessity spend their waking hours earning a living, get the facts, when most of the news sources they have time to consult relentlessly serve up the same lies and distortions?

The Democrats also won by offering up moderate and even conservative candidates. This was a clever ruse, and my prediction is that it will continue in the further cultivation of these newly elected dupes as the “new face” of the Democrat party. But to give you an idea of how these “moderates” will really fare, one only needs review the career of Senator Joseph Lieberman.

It’s astounding that people would fall for this, mere months after Lieberman was savagely attacked and unceremoniously dumped by the party he served faithfully for 18 years, simply because he took a reasonable (i.e. not radical Left) position on the war. But even this is nothing new.

You might not remember, but Lieberman initially campaigned as a conservative Democrat alternative to the widely despised liberal Republican senator, Lowell Weicker. He actually received the endorsement of William F. Buckley’s National Review, and Buckley started a tongue-in-cheek movement called “Buckleys for Lieberman.” He was only half-kidding. Lieberman got many republican votes on the strength of Buckley’s endorsement.

A major plank in Lieberman’s campaign was his opposition to the minimum wage, then being considered in a bill sponsored by Ted Kennedy. Immediately following his election, Lieberman was forced to be spokesman for Kennedy’s bill. This was his first task as a newly minted Senator and rendered forever irrelevant any campaign promises he made to legislate as a conservative. He never criticized the minimum wage again. Nary a peep. Today he calls himself a liberal. He learned fast.

The Dems will be a little slicker this time. The newbies will likely get visibility as the “new face” of the Democrat party. But just as Bill Clinton created the moderate Democrat Leadership Council to make himself appear more centrist, and then completely ignored them once elected, when push comes to shove, these moderate and conservative voices will be given the choice of playing ball with the Leftists, or being put out to pasture to graze like the dull-witted cows they are. Most, like Lieberman, will play ball.

Republicans meanwhile, will assume they failed because of the conservative agenda, and foolishly try to act “moderate” as if this will prevent Democrats from attacking them in the future. Exactly the opposite is true, but it’s easier than facing the facts: that they were gutless and self-serving, and abandoned the conservative principles that got them elected in the first place and would have kept them there if they had been faithful to those principles as their campaigns promised! So now they will go along to get along, relegating the Party to second class status like it had for the fifty years prior to 1994.

The Dems will finally succeed in obtaining their socialist designs when maximum leader Hillary Clinton is elected in 2008. Don’t just expect more liberal tripe from her though. No, this time it will be for keeps. For Hillary is not a merely leftist in the mold of Nancy Pelosi, or a disingenuous individual like Ted Kennedy. She, like her odious husband, is the genuine article: a died-in-the-wool communist, trained early on in the methods, tactics and goals of the communist party by her mentor, Robert Truehaft, a longtime member of the American Communist Party, and other notables. Her hand can be seen in many of the duplicitous tactics witnessed during this campaign. But as the Dems’ own 2000 campaign platform cheered: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Ann Coulter called them the “Treason Party.” When Hillary becomes President, the true dimensions of that moniker will become apparent.

Think whatever you like of my assertions above. But the Democrat party really does have diabolical plans for us. You may have read my earlier post today regarding ACORN. Review it here. A history of ACORN is provided here. The most important element in this post is the discussion of the Cloward-Piven Strategy. The central tenet of this strategy is “to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.”

This is the tack Democrats have taken in pushing us toward a nationalized health system. Through marginal changes in health law, the current system has gradually become so overburdened, inefficient and expensive that almost everyone is clamoring for the Feds to do something. Trouble is, they have been doing something already, and we are witnessing the result. If you think it’s bad now, wait until you get Hillarycare.

And this is just one issue. There are parallel tracks creating similar chaos in practically every other area of government. Consider what the Clintons did to the military during their previous reign. At the same time they were cutting defense budgets and personnel to the bone, the Clinton Administration sent our forces on arduous, extended “peacekeeping” and “nation building” exercises for which they were not trained, which left our troops exhausted to breaking point, and equipment broken. At the same time they pushed the envelope on all sorts of new social experiments, using the military as a test tube. One could look at this as merely foolish efforts to impose loopy leftist ideas, but the practical effect was to pull the military apart at its seams. I think Bill Clinton knew exactly what he was doing.

Some have minimized our loss with ritual reassurances: we’ll get it back in a few years; now we’ll be more motivated for 2008; look what happened after Jimmy Carter got his four years, etc. But what people don’t realize is the landscape has fundamentally shifted. It is not so much that the fundamental conservatism of the American people has changed. It hasn’t. What has changed permanently is the tactical competence of the left in its massive, coordinated efforts to delude the electorate. For the left, being two-faced, sleazy, treacherous, dishonest and duplicitous, to the borders of criminality, is nothing new. For them it is not a character flaw, it is an electoral strategy. And today that strategy has proved a resounding success.

Shame on us. Shame on the Democrat Party. Shame on America!

Freelance writer Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst (1987-1993). His writings have been published in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch online newsletter, Soldier of Fortune magazine, Military magazine and others. You may read this and other articles by Mr. Simpson on his blog Truth and Consequences.