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The Democratic Party is totally owned by progressives. The GOP isn't far behind.
The progressive movement has blurred the distinctions between the Republican and Democratic Parties. How did they do it? Where do we go now?
For our November issue, author and Washington Times news writer Cheryl Chumley looks at the history of the takeover, what it means and where it's going.
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Below are few small excerpts from the in-depth November 2013 cover story, “Takeover.” Get the full story ONLY in the newest issue of TheBlaze Magazine.
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In August, the nonprofit government watchdog Judicial Watch revealed documents it had obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request that depicted conservatives as crazies, Founding Fathers as radicals and America’s colonists as extremists.
The documents were training materials for the Department of Defense.
More specifically, this is what the FOIA found: The Department of Defense offers an Equal Opportunity Advisor Course, or EOAC, at a diversity center it partially funds at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, called the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute. The DEOMI’s most recent training manual and student guide for the advisor course, dated January 2013, defined extremism this way: “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples.”
Really?
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“It’s craziness,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, relaying his initial reaction on reading the training manual. “When you look at the document in its entirety, it’s incoherent, it’s lunacy, and what’s even scarier, it looks like it’s policy.”
What it’s not is an anomaly. Unfortunately, the document is an apt indicator of the nation’s current political wind.
From an Internal Revenue Service that can’t keep its regulatory fists off all things Tea Party—relegating nonprofit status applications from conservative groups to bureaucratic purgatory—to the ghastly federal chokehold called ObamaCare that’s wound about our medical providers’ necks, a subtle mood has wafted into our once proudly independent and free nation. It’s infected both political parties, churned up our Constitution and spit out our Founding Father principles.
Democratic-republic, meet progressivism.
NOT JUST ON THE LEFT
Progressivism is an anti-American mindset that purports to be, as its name suggests, a forward movement—a maturity of political thought, a steady walk toward cultural improvement, an advancement of general welfare. But what it’s really done is turned upside down and inside out the very “givens” that used to guide our nation’s belief systems, our core values, moral compasses and political endeavors.
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What used to be generally accepted belief is now challenged as radical. What once served as commonsense principle is now mocked and derided. What previously served as part and parcel of our proudest heritage—the American Revolution, the founding documents, the forging of our nation as the shining city upon a hill—is dismissed as extremism, labeled as dangerous by our own military.
[…]
If only it stayed confined to the Left, to the radicalized hard-line Democratic Party’s base—or to the Socialist Party, where it truly belongs—but it doesn’t.
Thanks can go to Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson for bringing the progressive movement to the big-gun bureaucracy of the federal government, via the New Deal and the Great Society plan. Roosevelt served 1901-1909 in the White House as a Republican; Wilson, 1913-1921 as a Democrat.
And it’s fitting, too, that, while both these men were historical legends of progressive leadership, they also hailed from different political parties—because that’s how the progressive movement works today.
Progressivism has gained a foothold and, in some cases, an outright stronghold, in both Democratic and Republican camps in present-day politics, which is curious for an ideology that more often than not marches in lockstep with socialist principles and platforms. But that would explain why many in the Republican Party hate the Tea Party with nearly as much vigor as most in the Democratic Party—they’re viewing the “Taxed Enough Already” movement through the same lens of progressive politics.
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Here’s an example of how deeply the progressive mindset has sunk into America’s political system:
The now-latent group Republicans for Obama, formed as a nonprofit campaign tool to re-elect Obama in 2012, states on its website that Republican leaders and activists “have written moderates out of the party and have refused to work with the other side.” At the same time, the group states, “President Obama has shown himself to be a common-sense centrist,” cutting taxes “when necessary,” protecting the environment, and—here’s an eyebrow raiser, for sure—“aggressively pursu[ing] Islamic extremists who threaten America.”
“Most notably,” the group says, Obama’s given us ObamaCare, a “Republican-inspired health-care plan.”
The group counted among its members at least one former GOP senator, as well as former Ronald Reagan voters, who concluded: “Obama would fit in well as a Republican.”
The name alone, Republicans for Obama, should serve as an obvious example of how the Right’s swung Left, while the Left’s swung even farther Left, and what used to be considered liberal is now centrist—in some cases, even called conservative. But the nugget of truth in the group’s praises of Obama and attempt to paint him as a moderate is this: The ability of government to mandate individuals to obtain health care did make its entry via a Republican door named Mitt Romney.
GOVERNMENT IS THE ANSWER?
What constitutional clause gives the government the authority to require Americans to purchase a health-care plan? General welfare? Necessary and proper—also known as the elastic clause? …
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Regardless, when Hillary Clinton tried to push her government-run health-care package in 1993 during her stint as first lady, conservatives howled, decrying the idea as liberalism run amok and painting her as a socialist.
Fast-forward a few years to when Romney was making his run for the White House, facing uncomfortable questions about his passage of RomneyCare but simultaneously stated objection to ObamaCare, Republicans flocked to his defense, making a 10th Amendment case that states have the right to impose regulations where the federal government cannot. In all the back-and-forth that ensued in this matter, though, the larger issue was often overlooked: Government is not the solution. It is, more often than not, the problem.
To progressives, though, government is the be-all and end-all answer to all problems.
[…]
A couple decades ago, when self-reliance and hard work were still revered traits across most of America and government was not seen as the cure for all of society’s ills, calling government-mandated, taxpayer-funded health care a “need” would be alternately mocked and condemned—and loudly so. Just ask Hillary.
Nowadays, the Republican Party’s most touted members are standing up to their waists in Democratic Party principles, wrapping arms around formerly liberal policies that actually hail from progressive-minded ideology—yet calling themselves staunch Republicans and masquerading as conservatives. …
After 40 votes to defund ObamaCare, frustrated Tea Party people concluded it was the Republicans, led by House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio, that were to blame for the voters’ failure. Yet on this issue, Republicans continue to speak out of both sides of their mouths, promising to turn back time on the massive health-care overhaul yet simultaneously shaking their heads in helplessness and wringing their hands in defeat when it comes time to act on those promises. But still, they …
[…]
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We expose much more about the progressive takeover—especially in the GOP—and what it means. And it's not just ObamaCare that's a danger—it's the overall push for larger government in our schools, border security, culture, military and much more. Find out more of the ugly truth of progressivism's infestation.
Read the full piece only in the pages of the November issue of TheBlaze magazine—which you can get for FREE.
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