Democrat Civil War? | Chris Bedford

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Rebecca: Hello everyone. I’m Rebecca Weber. Welcome back to Better for America. And I’m thrilled to be joined right now by a wonderful gentleman, Christopher Bedford. He is a senior editor at The Federalist and previously editor in chief of The Daily Caller. Bedford is the vice chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom. This is an organization that really promotes conservative values on college campuses. It is great to have you with me, sir.

Chris: It’s great to be here. And I’ve actually got some Fun employment news is I’ve, uh, recently joined, uh, the blaze where I’ll be writing a three times a week newsletter, which you can, uh, sign up for at their new site.

Rebecca: Oh, really great. Look forward to checking that out. Now, recently you did write a great piece on the Democrat civil war and a few weeks. This was just a few weeks back. The article discusses the emerging division within the Democrat party. Uh, what are the issues that are splintering the left, uh, and, and how do you think that’ll play out in November?

Chris: Well, it kind of was, it was on, it was on full display, uh, Tuesday night in New York, where Jamal Bowman, one of the members of the squad, was beaten in a Democratic primary, uh, and taken down. He’s the first person to come in, uh, from, with the squad, who’s been defeated so far, despite the fact that the squad’s made political enemies in D.C.,left and right. Now this is a whole group of people that came in and the Democratic Party in 2018, uh, basically a symptom of Trump derangement syndrome where voters were so upset with Donald Trump that they were willing to do things like support open borders or abolish the police to, uh, try to try to try to own the Republicans. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is obviously the leader. Jamal Bowman came in in 2020. And the policies that they pushed on the democratic party, abolish ice, abolish the police, et cetera. Uh, they really peer pressured and brought a lot of grassroots pressure and a lot of intimidation towards Democrat leadership, who generally speaking was willing to go along.Uh, you saw a lot of this in 2020 in particular, and the results politically have been fairly disastrous. I mean, at this point, immigration is a problem as far as north of Chicago and Montana and Boston, Washington, DC. It’s something that’s become an albatross for Democrats. The same thing with crime, which while they’ve tried to blame Republicans, it just simply isn’t working. And where the squad kind of stepped over their boundaries was after the October 7th attack in Israel, where Bowman, for example, called the mass murders and mass rapes propaganda. And he’s since apologized for that, but finally Democrats felt like they had the moral high ground to really take out one of these guys who’s been a problem for them. It became the most, uh, expensive primary in House of Representatives history. I think about 25 million dollars was spent from outside groups like the American Israel PAC as well as groups that were more supportive of the squad. And on Tuesday night, they knocked out Bowman. And next they’re going to try and go for Cori Bush, which I think is going to be less likely. But one of the things that kind of stood out to me here was that Hillary Clinton, for example, came off the sidelines. Andrew Cuomo came off the sidelines to go against Bowman. That shows in a party that is typically does not criticize each other and a party that typically stands in strong unison. It’s like a phalanx.

Uh, so the Republicans could look with envy at how disciplined the Democratic Party is. Now you start to see the knives come out. And if Joe Biden loses this reelection, I think you’ll see a Democrat Civil War.

Rebecca: Wow. Yeah. It’s, it’s hard to imagine what that could look like, but you’re right. I mean, uh, anyone who’s going to stand in support of this, it was just such an embarrassing moment to see Bowman out there cursing and AOC out there ranting, uh, you know, all in the name of saving democracy, uh, and, you know, saving our country. And for anybody who goes along with that, there’s gotta be something really, very wrong with your thinking. And you mustn’t really understand American history, American culture.

Chris: It wasn’t even in his district. He was talking about how the South Bronx is gonna tell AIPAC where to go with a lot of curse words in it. He doesn’t represent the South Bronx. He represents like New Rochelle and White Plains and a part of the North Bronx. He was, he was criticized for not even representing his own constituents. And he held his big rally with a bunch of celebrities outside of his district, talking about people who aren’t voting for him. Uh, he was, he was out to lunch.

Rebecca: And you know what we’re seeing, and I’ve talked to a lot of different people, and I say, where do you see the future of America? And they say, well, look at, you know, look at our young people on college campuses. You know, look at what our children are being taught in kindergarten. Uh, look at how, you know, the, the administration invites, you know, uh, transgender folks and women take, you know, tearing off their bra on the, on the White House lawn. I mean, when you look at the young generation and what they’re exposed to, it’s hard to imagine what the future of America will look like unless change happens now and today. So I, I, we’ve got to, um, you know, we’ve got to get back to normalcy, common sense, law, and order. But there are so many issues that, that really are dividing issues. Our members, AMAC members, over 2 million strong, they’re fed up with wide open borders. They’re fed up with streets being less safe. Uh, you know, our police being persecuted. Um, and of course, how their wallets are impacted. There’s less money to spend today. Even though there’s more money out there, the value of the dollar is, is not worth what it was once worth. And young people can’t afford to buy a home. You know, old people are struggling, uh, with record level inflation. Uh, it seems that more and more people are waking up.

[00:05:45] And I, I think, uh, the, a lot of the minority groups, blacks in particular, Hispanics, are saying, uh, this doesn’t look right and feel right. Do you think that, um, that we’ll see, continue to see a, a major shift in people leaving the Democrat Party as we inch closer to the November election?

Chris: I think so. There’s very few Democrats who seem to have eyes wide open as to The massive amount of voters that have been abandoned by a party that’s basically led by the political ideas of unmarried college educated white women. Those are completely at odds with a lot of the blue collar America. It’s at odds with black and Hispanic men. But there’s a difficulty the country faces here. We’ve gone through a couple of, uh, Basically regime changes in this country where our relationship with government has been reordered pretty dramatically from the way it was previously. The Civil War was one where the Union’s victory there kind of reordered how the states and the federal government interact in the role of the federal government. You saw it with the New Deal in the 30s after the Dust Bowl and after the Great Depression and the Second World War. You saw it again with LBJ in the 60s and the Civil Rights legislation. Uh, in his new welfare state and I think that at this point, Barack Obama’s re election in 2012 actually was that election that was too big for conservatives to lose.You hear that all the time. This is the big one. I think that there really was the big one. You see, uh, a complete explosion in racial tension following that election. A complete demagoguing. of race, an abandonment of some of the class issues, uh, which never actually really took off in this country because class is so fluid in this country. How many rich people do you know who have, who have poor kids, or how many poor people do you know have wealthy kids? It’s, class is too fluid for that to work, but race is something they’ve been able to capitalize on. And at this point, if you’re a conservative minded person, you have to look around and say, What exactly are we conserving here? You’ve got a university system which is completely against the country. Not just against the country, against the West. Against your parents, against God, against biological gender, against You’ve got a medical establishment that’s making money off of these surgeries and targeting children and will back you up. You’ve got states that are basically willing to commit kidnapping to take children away from their parents. You’ve got a completely blocked border with the federal government that’s threatening the National Guard who try to actually stanch it and protect their own citizenry. So you have to wonder, I mean, what are conservatives conserving? And they really do have to have a mindset that’s a little more rebellious, a little more revolutionary. If you looked at the turn of the 20th century, the American left had control of almost nothing. I mean, they didn’t even have control over the unions, didn’t have control in Hollywood, didn’t have control of the corporations or the universities. they began a long, slow march where they considered themselves in a more revolutionary aspect, not just waiting for the pendulum to swing their way, but actively moving to take control of these institutions and these commanding heights. That’s the kind of mindset that conservatives are going to need to have. So going out and voting, that’s great, but four years of Donald Trump is not going to change the trajectory dramatically of the country. It takes a lot more work than that.

Rebecca: That’s right. It takes all of us, each and every one of us. I do want to shift just a moment to talk a little bit about what I’ve been hearing more people talk about on the streets, and that is the Senate Armed Services Committee and their provisions that they’re including to draft women In the National Defense Authorization Act, uh, despite bipartisan concerns, I know that some Democrats are hesitant or unaware of the proposal, or so they say, and it seems Republicans are divided. Uh, Senator Mike Lee argues that drafting women contra contradicts basic survival instincts and societal norms. Uh, what do you think are the broader political implications, uh, with key Democrats really facing re election challenges? 

Chris: Well, this is a dangerous idea for Democrats who are facing re election. They don’t want anything to do with it. Whether you’re Sherrod Brown in, in Ohio or Tester in Montana, they’re looking at this and saying, well, hold on a second. Maybe I, maybe I’m not exactly for this. It’s, the move to draft women is the natural progression of two things we’ve seen politically. One, this crazy idea that there’s no difference between men and women. Of course there is. Uh, there’s a massive physical differences, there’s different bone differences. One of the first things you can tell when you dig up a 10, 000 year old skeleton and try to analyze it, is if it was a man or a woman. Uh, that’s something that was broadly accepted science just a decade ago and is now being pushed.And you, so you’re seeing this push to try to draft women. And at the same time, uh, the thing which basically rules Washington, D. C. above all else, is the national security complex. You saw this in particular when Tommy Tuberville. Uh, the senator was trying to hold up military promotions until the Pentagon got rid of its abortion policies. Uh, the, the, the intel, uh, the, the defense guys won. The Republican Party sided with them. And they try to push this forward as a matter of military readiness. And they’ve got some apologists, like Marsha Blackburn, who says, It’s not about drafting women, it’s about service. Well, that’s insane. It’s creating a system for drafting people. It takes an act of Congress to turn that system on, but now the system is created. It’s kind of similar to creating a gun registry and saying, We’re not going to take your guns, we just want to know who has what, where they are, and how we can take them if we want to, and change our mind. Senator Mike Lee, I think, is pretty clear on this. I asked him if he thought it was a moral issue, and he said, No, it’s, it’s, it’s deeper than morals. It’s just basic human instinct. If somebody breaks into your home, you don’t send your daughter down to stop the intruder. You go down yourself. And the only time you would send your wife or daughter down to defend your home is if you are, and you and your sons and your brothers are incapable of doing so. If you’re in a actual, that kind of existential threat, threatening situation. Why would we do that as a country is beyond me. And Democrats have pushed this before. About three years ago they pushed this. And Mike Lee and Chip Roy of Texas were two of the loudest voices against it. And they retreated when the lights came on. And I’m hoping if enough attention can be brought to this again, that you’ll see that retreat as well.

Rebecca: Yeah, and Democrats, they’ve been attacking the nuclear family for quite some time now. They seem to think that, you know, both men and women can be mothers and that men can, you know, uh, nurse feed a baby. I mean, this is crazy stuff that we’re seeing and hearing. So it is no surprise that they would sort of lump all Americans in one group without really paying attention to, uh, you know, what kind of physical strength is needed in order to, you know, uh, participate in, in certain types of, um, Um, necessary, uh, and, uh, you know, situations that happen when, when faced with war or faced with, you know, fighting an enemy. And certainly women, make no mistake, can play an incredible role and always have throughout the, throughout generations, uh, including World War II and so on. Uh, but I agree with you that there is a, um, there is a blurring and they’re doing this so that they can, they can really strip individuals of their identity, uh, so there’s sort of a bigger. Uh, play here. I think I call it spiritual warfare. I don’t know what else to call it, sir. Before we let you go. Final question. You know, Joe Biden is stumbling. He’s mumbling. He can barely find his way off stage. We saw how Obama walked him off that stage. Um, how do you think he’s gonna make it? Well, I guess the question is, Can this man really win an election when everyone I’m talking to is saying he’s much too old, he’s losing it, he must be suffering from some form of dementia? Or is this going to have to be another, in order for him to win, will the Democrats have to rig the system in some way?

Chris: I think they’re already actively working to rig the system. They’re doing all the same things that they did in 2020. Uh, they’re pushing, you’ll see it in the courts. My wife’s an opinion editor, excuse me, an investigative editor at the Washington Examiner, and she’s currently working on a series for next week on all of the different ways that the Democrats are working and their friends are working to sort of stack the deck as strongly as they can in favor of Joe Biden. I mean, you combine that with a lot of the indifference of the American people, combine that with the number of different groups that are getting large payouts or getting taken care of by Democrat administrations, you combine that with the dislike that some people have, a lot of people have, it seems, for Donald Trump, and this is still an election that could absolutely be in the air. I mean, to look at the way that Joe Biden acts in public and in general, and to look at the way that Donald Trump acts, you would assume that this debate would be an absolute blowout. That Trump was completely correct to say, I’ll agree to whatever silly rules you want, Biden camp, just get on that stage and debate me. I think that was probably the right move, but whether it’s at the state of the union, uh, or in the debates, even in 2020, Joe Biden has shown that he is capable of performing when it counts. He’ll wander off in a couple of day conference. He’ll obviously lose track during conf, uh, concerts and different things like that. Sometimes he can mumble during his press conferences. But time and time again, he’s done well at the moments when it counts. So I would still count him as a formidable opponent.

Rebecca: Yeah. Well, thank you. We’ll have to watch and see how things unfold in the coming weeks and months. Christopher Bedford. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Chris: Thanks for having me.

Rebecca: And thanks to all of you out there. Have a great day, everyone.