The Democrat’s New Strategy to Take Back the White House: Change the Election Rules and Buy Off as Many Voters as Possible

April 22, 2019

It has been just over two and a half years since Donald Trump won the presidency. During that time the Democrats have not been able to accept the loss even though their candidate was an extremely poor campaigner and would have been the most corrupt president in US history. Their behavior has been so bad that it reminds me of unruly children stomping their feet because they are not getting their way. This childish behavior is not helping to solve the many problems facing this country, but this is how Democrats roll. They would rather undermine this president and create division than roll up their sleeves and do the work of governing.

Since Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, the Democrats have been laser-focused on the 2020 election cycle. It is their hope to retake the white house and possibly the senate as well. They are aware that running against the strongest economy in the world is going to be an uphill battle. In addition, not only have they not done anything to help this president move the country forward, they have openly obstructed him at every turn. For example, they have hindered the president’s efforts to secure the southern border and have spent most of their time, even after the Mueller Report was released, investigating the President, his staff, his family, and his businesses. This, in my opinion, will not be a particularly strong platform to run on in 2020.

With that said, the Democrats, unable to run on the issues, are planning to change the rules of the game. It is their core strategy to change some of the laws governing our election process. Several of the Democratic presidential candidates stated publicly that they are in favor of eliminating the electoral college. If this were to happen, presidential elections would be decided by the popular vote only.

This would mean that fifteen states, including Illinois, the entire west coast, and the eleven states located in the northeast would have an unfair amount of influence over the outcome of presidential elections. These fifteen states account for 125 million people or 38% of the US population. The purpose of the electoral college was to prevent states with large populations from disenfranchising voters from states with smaller populations. It would also mean that candidates could ignore those sparsely populated states and spend all their time campaigning in the states that are more densely populated.

As if eliminating the electoral college wasn’t enough, some Democrats, including some who are running for president, are also in favor of returning the right to vote to convicted felons. It was Senator Sanders who originally brought up this issue during a televised town hall meeting. Several other candidates, including Kamala Harris, jumped on the bandwagon and voiced their support for the change. When the media started playing sound bites of the candidates advocating a change in this law, which would include giving back the right to vote to convicted murderers, rapists, and terrorists, there was almost immediate pushback from the public. As soon as the pushback began, there was a race to see which candidate could backtrack the fastest.

Ultimately, they settled on giving the right to vote back to felons who have completed their sentence—with the exception of murderers, rapists, and terrorists. In an effort to outdo one another, some of these Democratic hopefuls have gone so far as to propose returning voting rights to convicts who have not yet completely paid off their debt to society—all to try and gain an advantage over their opponents. I’m sure there will be pushback on this proposal as well.

Democrats are also in favor of lowering the voting age to sixteen. Why sixteen? Why not ten or twelve? School officials could make the act of voting so convenient. Local municipalities could even put voting machines into the schools. That way liberal-minded teachers could exert a little more influence over their students. They could even go into the voting booths with students “to make sure that the students know how to operate the machine correctly. This would bring “being obvious” to a whole new level.

Another change advocated by Democrats is giving the right to vote to illegal immigrants. This is actually happening in some states already in local and statewide elections. Democrats want this should to be the case in federal elections as well.

In an effort to further this agenda, Democrats are in favor of open borders. This open borders policy is just another part of their strategy to change election laws. More illegal immigrants means more Democratic votes. More Democratic votes means more Democratic wins at the ballot box. It’s as simple as that.

Many of these people are undereducated and unskilled. A good many of those who enter our country illegally wind up living off the public dole. What better way to enjoy living the American dream then to come to America illegally and be supported by the American taxpayer? It doesn’t get any better than that.

If we continue with our present immigration policy, America as we know it will end. It is now estimated that in fiscal year 2019 approximately one million illegal immigrants from Central America, Cuba, and, most recently, Venezuela will enter our country. In addition to the illegals from the western hemisphere, there are now illegals crossing our southern border from China, Sri Lanka, India, and the African continent—including Syria. If one million illegals are entering our country from just the western hemisphere, how many more do you think will come here to the US from countries in Africa and Asia? The answer is millions. Many of these people will be unable to support themselves, which means that the US taxpayer will be saddled with yet another burden. This will continue until the idiots that we have elected to run this country stop it.

I am fully aware that there is a percentage of Americans who, for one reason or another, are dependent upon public assistance and I have no problem with that. However, I draw the line at importing unskilled and uneducated people from all over the world who come here for a better life at the expense of the US taxpayer. These people take our resources, of which there is a finite amount, and in many cases give little or nothing back.  

If there is one universal truth about Democrats, especially the extremely left-leaning Democrats of today, it is that they will say anything to anybody, or any special interest group, to get their votes. In these instances, truth is not required.

One such example is the payment of reparations to the descendants of slaves. A recent poll taken by Data for Progress, a liberal-leaning organization, showed that only 26% of Americans agree that reparations should be paid. The results of surveys such as these show very weak support for this Democratic proposal, which, in my view, is nothing more than pandering. The goal of these politicians is to convince African Americans that they are in favor of financial reparations for the descendants of slaves. They make these statements on the campaign trail even though they know that there is minimal support for the proposal. They are also aware that legislation for reparations will probably never become law. The fact that they merely state that they are in favor of reparations is enough to sway African Americans to support them at the ballot box. This is really their only concern.

2020 Democratic Hopefuls Embracing Reparations

Another example of pandering by Democrats is that some of their candidates are promising to have a woman VP candidate. Some of the possible female VP candidates being talked about are also African American. This has brought pandering to whole new level. Democrats have succeeded in pandering to two different special interest groups at the same time, women and African Americans. This shows just how efficient Democrats can be when it comes to pandering. Just to be clear, it is not my intention to suggest that women, white or black, would not be qualified to be VP. What I am saying is that narrowing your options for a running mate fifteen months before your party’s political convention—and also before winning your party’s nomination—is an obvious attempt to pander to both women and African Americans.

Currently, twenty-seven states have right-to-work laws. At least two Democratic presidential candidates have stated that they will do all they can to reverse these laws. These right-to-work laws give employees the right to work at jobs where the workforce is primarily made up of union workers. These laws guarantee that it will not be mandatory for anyone to join a union, and therefore be forced to pay union dues as a condition of accepting employment. This is settled law. The supreme court ruling in Janus vs AFSCME stated that mandatory union membership in public unions and the corresponding required dues are a violation of the first amendment.

Senator Kamala Harris described “right to work” as an attack on workers’ rights. If anything, they are just the opposite. These laws actually give employees the right to choose whether or not they wish to join a union. They also give these employees the right to not pay the required dues as a condition of their employment. These laws do not forbid union employees from organizing, nor do they impede the union’s right to strike. So where is this so-called attack on workers’ rights? 

The right-to-work laws are significant because of the way union dues are sometimes used. Union leadership has the ability to spend funds in almost any way they deem appropriate. This would include the support of specific political candidates or political parties. The problem arises when the political party supported by union leadership differs from that of some members. If union membership and the payment of dues are mandatory, then union members whose political leanings differ from those of union leadership would be forced, by the payment of dues, to support a political party they disagree with. In my opinion, forcing members to support a political party they disagree with, is the real attack on workers’ rights.

Another strategy being pursued by Democrats is to buy off as many voters as possible with taxpayers’ dollars. This is accomplished by offering as much “free stuff” to as many different voting groups as they can. For example, Senator Sanders has been pushing his so-called Medicare for All plan for more than four years now. This plan is a disaster waiting to happen for several very important reasons. First, this plan would cost US taxpayers roughly $3.2T per year. In order to pay for this, the total amount of all government revenue, excluding borrowing, would need to almost double. Just to be clear, government revenue is mostly raised through tax collection.

Secondly, the claim made by the Senator that his plan would provide high-quality healthcare is misleading. If his plan were to be implemented, all private healthcare insurance would be eliminated. This would mean that government-run, single-payer healthcare would be the only game in town. It would also mean that healthcare in America would be administered by government bureaucrats. They would make the decisions regarding which services would be covered, as well as how much healthcare providers would be paid for each service. This is in direct conflict to our current system where most healthcare decisions are made by physicians.

Under our current system, private health insurance companies reimburse healthcare providers at a higher rate than the government for like services. Under the government-run plan proposed by Senator Sanders, all medical insurance claims would be paid by the government at the lower government rate. This would result in lower revenue for healthcare providers. Lower revenue means cuts in staff and other areas as well. These cuts would need to be made for the proposed system to remain financially viable and would result in lower quality healthcare. As a country, we should not be striving for lower quality healthcare; we should, in fact, be striving for higher quality healthcare. Simply put, Senator Sanders’ plan does not move the country in the right direction.

This giveaway is designed to provide healthcare for roughly 30 million uninsured people and disrupt the healthcare services of over 250 million people who currently have healthcare insurance in one form or another. With the beginning of the presidential primary season, some of the Democrats who have decided to run for president are advocating for free healthcare for illegal immigrants. So, in addition to providing free healthcare to American citizens who have access to Medicaid, we are now also being asked to pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants. It is almost a foregone conclusion that these illegals will eventually obtain the right to vote. This is just one part of the Democratic plan to buy votes and pander to voters with US tax dollars.

Another program intended to buy off voters is free tuition at all public colleges and universities. The estimated cost of this giveaway ranges from $50B to $75B per year to start. Government entitlements currently consume almost 65% of the total US budget. With other outlays such as interest on the debt increasing every year, how much more will taxpayers be expected to pay to further the Democratic plan to buy back the whit? 

In addition to further burdening taxpayers with more giveaways, I also have concerns about the curriculum and who will be setting that curriculum. Will there be a political bias in the classroom? If the government is going to pay the tuition, will government bureaucrats have partial control or a say in what is taught? I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but this sort of thing has happened before. I would not be in favor of it happening here.

The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been around since the time of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). It has been kicked around here in the US seriously for a couple of decades but has never gotten a lot of traction. There are several variations of the plan but the one that I’m most familiar with is a version that I read about several years ago. This version would give every adult citizen of the US a monthly stipend, tax-free, of $1000 per month. It would also give every child, who is a citizen, a tax-free monthly stipend of $250 per month. There would be no restrictions on the use of these funds. The money could be used for gambling, drugs, alcohol, and even child porn. Since I would prefer that my tax dollars not be used for these purposes, I would voice my opposition to this program in the strongest possible terms.

Another argument against UBI is that some people, in an effort to get more money from the government, would have more children. As is normally the case with government giveaways, people find ways to game the system. There is no rule that says the $250 per month for each child has to be spent on the children. With the numbers quoted above, a family of four would receive $30,000 per year tax-free. The estimated cost of this program is reported to be around $3T per year. Here again, the total amount of revenue that the government collects every year would have to almost double to cover the cost of the program. With all this “free stuff” being given out, you would think that there wouldn’t be any more voters to buy off. Just keep reading. There’s more.

In their continuing effort to buy off as many voters as possible, some of the Democratic presidential candidates, and other Democrats as well, are in favor of a college loan forgiveness program. This plan would forgive up to $50K of student loan debt per student, for households with an annual income of under $100K. The amount of debt forgiven would be reduced as household income increases. The estimated cost of this giveaway is in the range of $1.5T. It must be so much fun to give money away. This is especially true when it’s not yours.

As you’ve probably noticed, most of the proposed giveaways that these Socialist-leaning candidates are in favor of are aimed at millennials and younger voters from generation X. This makes perfect sense when you think about it. People from my generation, the baby boomers, are dying off every day. The younger generations are going to be taking over the reins of the country. It is therefore smart politics, but very bad economics, to give all this money away. As I’ve stated in previous posts, once an entitlement is given, it is almost impossible to take it away.

As I have said numerous times on this blog, the US is $22T in debt and it is only going up. In the not too distant future, interest expense on the debt will exceed one trillion dollars per year. We need to cut entitlement spending—not increase it. If we continue down this road, the US will eventually be forced to raise taxes to what I would consider to be confiscatory levels. This would cost jobs and would have a serious negative impact on the economy.      

Unless this country wakes up and stops squandering its resources, it will find itself in a hole so deep that it will never be able to climb out of it. Many of these vain, uninformed millennials are of the opinion that the government will take care of everything. They think healthcare and college tuition should be free. They think that the government has unlimited resources. The facts are that nothing the government does is free. Neither Medicare nor Social Security is free. The same is true for free college tuition and unemployment benefits. The government has to levy taxes or borrow the money to pay for all this “free stuff.” When our national debt reaches a certain level (and I don’t know what that level is), the country will no longer be able to borrow, and will face financial ruin.  

There’s an old saying: Sh-t rolls downhill. What this means is that if federal government becomes insolvent, a good many, if not all the states, will follow. A consequence of insolvency is that many federal employees would lose their jobs and as the sh-t begins rolling down the hill many state and local government jobs would also be lost. These jobs support the private sector: They pay mortgages, buy cars, groceries, and all the necessities we need to live the way we do. When those paychecks disappear, all those businesses that depend on their patronage will experience a significant drop in revenue. Some of these businesses will not survive. Others will limp along with a much lower amount of revenue. This is called depression, and it will be the most devastating depression we’ve ever experienced.

The good news for me, and many of the people in my generation, is that we probably won’t be around to see any of this happen. The bad news is that my children, and especially my grandchildren, will not be able to experience the wonderful life that I’ve had the privilege to enjoy in this country for the past seventy years. I believe this to be true because a great many of the people in these younger age groups view socialism as a better alternative than capitalism. They have all been blinded by the promise of “free stuff.” It is their belief that if the government pays for healthcare and college tuition, they and all their friends will have more money in their pockets to spend on the “more important things” in life. Things like Beamers and Benzs and bigger houses and country club memberships. It is my opinion that many of today’s young people actually believe that this is what America will look like under a socialist economic system—despite the fact that there are numerous examples of failed socialist states. These young people should be very careful what they wish for. They may just get it.

Below is a projected federal budget that includes all of the giveaway programs advocated by the Democratic Socialists. The estimated costs of these new programs can be found in numerous publications and media outlets. They are remarkably similar.                                                   

Projected Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2021 *

* Projected budget for FY 2021 based on current levels adjusted modestly for inflation 2020 & 2021 

** Tax Increases proposed by AOC and E. Warren. Revenue estimates by CNBC. (Also cut to military spending:  50% proposed by AOC)

*** If individual income taxes were doubled on the one percent

*** If corporate income tax were to double

**** Does not include Green New Deal proposed by AOC. To be included, add additional $6.1T to outlays

As you see by the projected budget, even with all the tax increases being proposed by Senator Sanders, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren, there is still a whopping deficit of almost $6T per year. There has also been talk of a Valued Added Tax (VAT), which is a national sales tax, and also a carbon tax, which is a tax on energy. Both of these taxes hit low-income and lower-middle-income families the hardest. That said, both of these taxes would be difficult to pass into law. Unless there are other sources of government revenue available, the federal deficit will be almost $6T per year. To all of you Dems out there who are just dying to spend other people’s money, good luck trying to sell this budget.