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Amidst the Democratic wipeout this past Election Day, a very few strands of Democratic cheer shone through the clouds. Democrats reigned supreme in New York and California, of course, thanks to the "iron triangle" of corrupt public-sector unions investing their ill-gotten taxpayer dollars in re-electing compliant politicians. This model can't be extended into "right to work" states and, in any case, will eventually end when the captive states collapse in bankruptcy.
Harry Reid's victory in Nevada is generally credited to Hispanic support, but America is all too aware of Democrat plans to "pack the vote" with amnesty for illegals and it's almost inconceivable that that'll happen in the foreseeable future.
Then there was one strange outlier: Gov. Joe Manchin's solid Senate victory in West Virginia, a state occupied by just the sort of people who, across the rest of the country, full-throatedly rejected elitist and statist Democrats.
Why wasn't Democrat Manchin thrown out the window along with the rest of his fellow Dems? Simple: he threw them out first.
In an astonishing ad just before the election, Gov. Manchin was shown rejecting Obama's economy-destroying "cap and trade" bill care by literally shooting a hole in the bill with a gun. What's more, in the same ad he attacked Obamacare and promised that
I'll take on Washington and this Administration to get the federal government off of our backs and out of our pockets.
Now, what he said about Obamacare was that he wants to repeal only the "bad parts." Not too long ago he endorsed it wholesale. Despite his earlier statements, his compelling visuals did what most other Dems couldn't: distanced him from the takeover of one sixth of our economy so reviled by the electorate.
We shall see whether he means what he said or whether it was all just the usual sham to delude the gullible. But Joe Manchin has been governor of a state which, already poor, would be utterly destroyed by Obama's plans. By far the biggest industry and traditional employer of West Virginians is coal mining, exactly the industry that the climate-fraudsters want to shut down by any means necessary.
Manchin understands like perhaps no other governor the dire human cost of "climate change" regulation and taxes. Does this make him a pro-business Republican? Not necessarily - West Virginia is full of poor people who claim government aid of all types, but the state is simply not wealthy enough to be a full-court-press welfare state and never has been.
This makes Manchin potentially a most historic character: a pro-American, pro-growth Democrat much like Democrats of a half-century ago - and something that the Democratic Party needs to become again if it and America are to survive.
The Democrats have been so busy passing massive laws that will destroy our economy that we've been calling them the "evil party" to distinguish them from Republicans who're the "stupid party" for not being more effective in opposing such bad ideas. As Pajamas Media put it,
The Democratic Party has become synonymous with deficits, defeatism, and the decay of the American dream. Where are the rank-and-file Dems who will rescue their party from its hard left leadership?
Pajamas has a point. The Tea Party activists were hard on Republicans who seemed to them to have abandoned traditional Republican principles of limited government and limited spending. It appears that the incoming crop of new Republican Congresspersons has heard the message of limited spending. It remains to be seen whether they'll stick to their principles or be co-opted by the beltway-bandit culture of stealing our money, but this is a step in the right direction.
In the meantime, what of the Democrats? There is nothing wrong with Democrats advocating increased spending - that's what Democrats have advocated for a century, and the whole point of having Congress at all is deciding how tax dollars ought to be spent and how many of them there ought to be.
What's not acceptable is their relatively recent selling out to the government employee unions. It was their revered JFK who signed executive order 10988 which allowed federal employees to join unions. This was a hard break with Democratic tradition - no less a labor luminary than George Meany said, "it is impossible to bargain collectively with government."
What's wrong with unionized public workers, you ask? Our explanation bears repeating.
In a private company, there is an inevitable conflict between management and any unions. The unions naturally enough want more pay; management knows that pay increases come out of profits and future growth so they oppose them.
Generally they meet somewhere reasonable in the middle. Occasionally the union goes out on strike, in which case management either hires cheaper replacement workers or sweetens the deal.
In no case can management pay workers more than they are worth, however, at least not for very long; if the company is not able to make enough money to pay the union wages it goes out of business. This is an automatic death sentence to that particular greedy union local, and there's not much good for the executives at the helm when the ship sinks either.
Public-sector unions have no such automatic limit. They can merrily demand whatever wages they think they can get, and their "bosses" in the legislature can merrily give it to them because government workers do not have to do anything productive. Not enough money? Extract more taxes at the point of a gun! That's why in 2009, total federal worker compensation including benefits averaged $123,049, or double the private-sector average of $61,051. That's simply unsustainable - when government costs too much, the economy collapses.
The astounding spending by the recent Democratic Congress, Senate, and White House have demonstrated once again that We the People fare very badly when one party controls both branches of government. We didn't do much better when the Republicans were in the same position: they abandoned their principles of limited government and spent money like there was no limit.
We need a loyal opposition to oppose the party in power, but mere opposition isn't enough: the opposition has to be loyal to fundamental American ideals. Unfortunately, the Democrats not only advocate spending more money which is a reasonable opposition position, they seem to believe that every problem in the world is America's fault.
Let’s face it: Americans aren’t used to our president heading overseas and trashing our values, distorting our history, weakening our defensive posture, and taking the stance that America is “just another country.”
A disloyal opposition we don't need, and we must cut spending before our economy goes under. The Republican governor of New Jersey has faced down the public sector unions. He hasn't been able to cut their pay yet, but he's working the problem.
If a Democratic governor of West Virginia follows New Jersey's example, he could help the Democrats get back to their traditional policy of helping working people instead of wasting tax money on growing public sector union membership.
It would also help if the Democrats had a Tea Party of their own. Some Democrats who deplore the direction their party has taken are talking about a Tequila Party movement to force the Democrats back toward what they claim are their traditional views. Unfortunately, the Tequila Party advocates treasonous policies like open borders, unlimited amnesty, and the bilingual America that symbolizes a Balkanized, failed multiculturalism. Where's the Democratic grass roots pressure to return to the traditionally liberal but pro-American policies of even FDR?
As far as we're concerned, both parties have shown utter contempt for the law and for any sense of ethics. The establishments of both parties seem to be fixated on stealing as much money from us as possible.
Thus, having grass roots Democrats as disgusted with their party grandees as Tea Partiers loathe the Republican establishment would be a good thing. We anticipate that as more and more people become alarmed at the direction of our country, Democrats like Joe Manchin will help lead the Democratic party back to its roots.
When we get rid of all the party grandees who're more interested in lining their pockets than managing the country, we'll be in good shape. In addition to cost-conscious Republicans, we need Democrats who're good real-world managers.
Three cheers for Joe Manchin. Here's looking at you, sir!