Cal Thomas: Comparing campaigns

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, August 22nd, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. The Democratic National Convention wraps up tonight with Kamala Harris accepting the party’s nomination for President. Barack Obama spoke Tuesday evening saying America is ready for a new chapter…but commentator Cal Thomas says there’s a familiar ring to this year’s convention that feels like a look back, not forward.

CAL THOMAS: The first Democratic National Convention I attended was in San Francisco, 1984. UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick indelibly labeled attendees: “San Francisco Democrats” due to their left-leaning policies.

Forty years later it appears little has changed. Then, Vice President Walter Mondale gave his acceptance speech. He’d been nominated to take another crack at the invincible Ronald Reagan. He gave many promises and criticisms today’s Democrats are renewing at their convention this week in Chicago.

Then, Mondale claimed to have learned a lesson from his and Jimmy Carter’s defeat by Reagan in 1980. In his acceptance speech, Mondale tried to move toward the center by using familiar buzzwords like: “family,” “hope,” “caring,” “patriotism,” and “the future.” Today, Mondale’s party uses the same terms…but means something radically different, and the party has moved even further left.

Mondale claimed he wouldn’t raise taxes, but later in a debate with Reagan he said he would. He bashed corporations and “the rich,” claiming they were better off, but “working Americans are worse off” … sound familiar? Another golden oldie: he claimed Reagan and the Republicans wanted to “slash Social Security and Medicare.”

Mondale bemoaned the $200 billion deficit…I wonder what he’d say about today’s $35 trillion debt?

If Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech last Friday in North Carolina is any indication of what she might say tonight in Chicago, she may be channeling Mondale and other Democratic presidential nominees…some of whom became president, raised taxes, and increased the debt.

In North Carolina, Harris announced her support for more than a dozen economic policies aimed at “lowering costs for American families,” including $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time home buyers. Harris apparently has yet to realize that more government spending and increased debt causes inflation. Inflation is what has led to higher grocery and gas prices and higher mortgage rates. Once again, we hear the denunciation of corporations and charges they are “price gouging,” a term they never define.

If Harris proposes to use the power of the federal government to lower prices she should consider past attempts at price controls. Richard Nixon tried it and it failed. Socialist countries didn’t succeed either. Cutting the size and cost of government, along with maintaining the soon to expire Trump tax cuts would create an economic boom. They have in the past.

A Wall Street Journal editorial last week has it right. Titled; “How the Biden-Harris Economy Left Most Americans Behind.” It says: “A government spending boom fueled inflation that has crushed real average incomes.” Harris wants to spend more. Does anyone think continuing on a path that has led to inflation will reduce it?

Democrats have played the envy of the wealthy, greed for what they have, and entitlement tunes since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sometimes it’s worked because human nature likes free stuff…except it isn’t free. As humorist P.J. O’Rourke said: “If you think health care is expensive now, just wait ‘til it’s free.”

Harris will likely reprise the tune in tonight’s acceptance speech. She might even promise to do something about the massive influx of migrants, but the obvious question would be why hasn’t she and the president done anything about it during their administration, except falsely blame Republicans in Congress?

Harris is dangerous because no one knows what she believes and the few things she said she once believed – no fracking is only one example – she has flipped on without explaining why.

Those San Francisco Democrats may have migrated to Chicago this week.

I’m Cal Thomas.

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