Last week I heard some puzzling statements. Laura Ingraham Fox News hosts spoke of “moderate Democrats” who were offended by the party’s choice of Kamala Harris as its presidential candidate. These supposed “moderates” include Gretchen Whitmer, Sherrod Brown, Mark Kelly, and my own Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro. When Florida Democratic donor John Morgan appeared on Ingraham’s show to say he would not donate to Kamala in favor of other Democratic presidential candidates, the host sympathized with Morgan’s concerns. She lamented his fate as an abandoned Democrat whose “party is gone. That ship has sailed.”
While I agree with the argument that Kamala may be a bit more unconventional than some of her party’s other, less unconventional members, I don’t see any major differences in their core positions. For example, which Democrats does Ingraham mention who supports a late-term abortion ban or a diversity, equity, and inclusion plan? Who protested biological males participating in female athletics or slammed Biden for opening the country to over 10 million illegal immigrants?
Clearly left-leaning Democrats like Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro have now been elevated to the status of moderate, traditional Democrats.
Let me correct myself on that last point. Kelly, who represents Arizona, a state overrun with illegal immigrants, has occasionally criticized the Democratic administration for not adequately addressing the crisis on the state’s southern border. But that same Democratic senator from, say, my state of Pennsylvania, would likely have remained silent on issues less divided than the Southwest. John Fetterman’s complaints about Biden’s lack of immigration policy sparked celebrations on Fox News, but I would like to remind readers that the young senator remained a staunch Biden supporter to the end. Currently supporting Harris.
Political activists like to recall the “honorable enemy,” but they say it’s gone. This noble enemy existed until recently, but now it’s gone. I recently encountered this habit among Republican Harris critics, who fondly recall the old Democratic Party that existed until five seconds ago and has since been replaced by Kamala’s supporters. That change came at the very moment that Democratic Party leaders began to endorse Biden’s successor.
Unfortunately, the game pushes a laughable narrative. In fact, it’s a narrative that barely matches the relentless attacks Fox News celebrities have waged against the Democratic Party over the past three and a half years. If you listened to the channel before Biden dropped out of the race, you would never have guessed that feminist, pro-abortion, DEI-obsessed Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan belonged to the Democratic moderate past. If you listened to Laura Ingraham last week, you might have mistaken this infuriated feminist and lockdown fanatic for Thomas Jefferson or Grover Cleveland or, more closely reminiscent of our time, Adlai Stevenson or JFK. Assuming that “moderate Democrats” jumped ship last week, perhaps I should dismiss all the negative things Ingraham has said about the Democratic Party for years. (For the record, I agree with them.)
Clearly left-leaning woke Democrats like George Latimer and Josh Shapiro, who beat Jamaal Bowman in the New York State Assembly primary a few weeks ago, have now elevated to the status of moderate, traditional Democrats. Not coincidentally, these figures are much further left than most Democrats of 20 years ago, but a little further left than figures in the more progressive wing of the party.
Latimer is more grammatically correct than Bowman and speaks less venomously about Israelis, but the flattering term “moderate” hardly springs to mind when talking about him. About social issuesespecially when it comes to unlimited abortion until late pregnancy and DEI, Latimer is exactly where New York Governor Kathy Hockle and Joe Biden were. No one, including Latimer’s fans in Murdoch Media, could point out a single difference.
The only position that seems to prove that Shapiro is some kind of “moderate” is his decision to offer school vouchers. He reportedly did this in defiance of teachers unions, who are major donors to the Democratic Party. But Shapiro After some hesitation, I took that step. Then, after deciding not to include vouchers in the state budget, he changed his mind.
He ultimately took the plunge because blacks are a key constituency of the Democratic Party; these Democrats loyally support Shapiro’s party but also expect funding for their favorite charter schools. The fact that Shapiro finally caved to this constituency after considering other options hardly indicates that he is a “traditional” Democrat. The same can be said for senior U.S. Senator Robert Casey Jr., both of whom are Biden Democrats and willing to endorse Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination.
If Shapiro were asked to accept the Democratic vice presidential nomination and turned it down, it certainly wouldn’t be for ideological reasons: He might decide that the front-runners are underdogs and postpone his presidential ambitions until 2028. Unlike John Morgan, Shapiro certainly doesn’t feel abandoned by the Democratic Party.
