It’s Tough When Your Base Is Crazy

Sometimes you wonder why Democratic politicians are so crazed. But then you see stories like this that make it clear:

Protesters shouted down Rhode Island Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse during a community event as they protested his vote in favor of President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director and pushed him to vote against other nominees.

A video of Sunday’s event posted by the group Resist Hate RI shows hundreds of people at the event, and the crowd chanting “Just Say No!” and “Obstruct!” while demanding an explanation of his vote for Mike Pompeo as CIA director.

I’m so old, I can remember when Democrats condemned obstructionism. And who knew that one day, the Democrats would adopt Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no” mantra as their own?

Note that the protesters have nothing in particular against Pompeo, a superbly qualified nominee.

McCabe on Monday confirmed a report by the Brown Daily Herald that Whitehouse at one point conceded he may have been wrong on the Pompeo vote. She released a statement from Whitehouse that said while Pompeo would not have been his choice, he knows the intelligence community well and “can be a check on dangerous impulses from the Trump White House.”

The video shows people in the crowd angrily shouting and jeering as Whitehouse speaks, and Whitehouse telling them he understands many people disagree with his vote.

“Take responsibility! Be accountable! You work for us!” one man can be heard shouting on the video.

Others can be heard shouting “Why would you vote yes for any of them?” and “They’re all appointed by a fascist!”

If Sheldon Whitehouse isn’t far enough left for you, you are off the spectrum. And it isn’t clear what strategy the protesters want to pursue. Vote against all of Trump’s nominees? So we never have a CIA director? Or, say, a Secretary of the Treasury? This is not an approach that elected politicians like Whitehouse want to explain to their non-crazy constituents, but it is the one favored by their base, which must be humored.

Likewise with Chuck Schumer. Try as he might, he just can’t get far enough left:

A coalition of activists called #NotOneInch are planning a poignant and unique form of protest today: delivering a number of “back-up spines” to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York.

The protestors are organizing in response to Schumer’s vote to approve three of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members: Mike Pompeo, James Mattis and Mike Flynn.

It isn’t enough to oppose some of an opposing president’s nominees. You have to oppose all of them!

“When will spineless Democrats get it through their heads that we demand ZERO COLLABORATION with the Trump/extreme GOP agenda? ZERO,” Tim Murphy, co-founder of #NotOneInch and active member of Gays Against Guns (GAG), told The Huffington Post. “It is infuriating that Schumer thinks just because he’s sitting pretty in his Senate seat for six more years, he can afford to vote yes on SOME of these terrifying cabinet picks to preserve some dealmaking leverage with Republicans. NO.”

#NotOneInch is an affinity group of larger NYC anti-Trump action group Rise & Resist that calls on Democrats to budge “not one inch” to President Trump and the GOP’s agenda.

The liberal press tries to pretend that it is conservatives who are extreme, but in 2009, were there conservative activists demanding that Republican Senators block every single Obama nomination, without exception? No. Not one conservative, to my recollection, demanded any such thing. Obama’s nominations breezed through, even such sketchy choices as Eric Holder.

If Democratic politicians seem crazy these days, there is a good reason: they are trying to satisfy a demented base.

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