Sen. Cory Booker’s, D-N.J., proposal for a federal registry of gun owners is nuts. It is also the latest in a growing list of fringe ideas championed by potential and current 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
“As president, we will make commonsense changes to our gun laws, such as requiring a license to purchase a gun that includes universal background checks, banning assault weapons, and closing the loopholes that allow domestic abusers and people on terrorist watch lists to get their hands on a gun,” Booker said Monday in a statement.
Later, in defense of his proposal, the New Jersey senator trotted out the extremely authoritarian argument that only guilty people fear being placed on a government watchlist.
“[W]e know that this is not a plan that any law-abiding gun owner should be concerned about it,” the senator told CBS News’ John Dickerson. “The people who should be concerned are two groups: one, the people who want to break the law, gun runners and criminals, and the gun manufacturers who have been working in an ungodly way to undermine the safety and security of this nation.”
If you think this is bad, you have not been paying attention. The 2020 Democratic presidential primary has been a smorgasbord of left-wing fringe advocacy, with each attempt to pander to the base crazier than the last.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., for example, momentarily championed calls to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. (In classic Gillibrand fashion, she later flip-flopped on that position, but it’s still popular with some Democrats.)
Speaking of Gillibrand’s constantly “evolving” positions on immigration enforcement, she said in February that she would consider supporting fellow 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke’s call to destroy already existing barriers along the U.S. southern border.
Then there is the absurd $93 trillion Green New Deal, which calls for, among other things, upgrading or replacing all buildings in the U.S. to meet the resolution’s predetermined environmental standards. The Senate version of the ludicrous, supposedly eco-friendly proposal is co-sponsored by several 2020 candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Booker, and Gillibrand. Funny enough, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., brought the resolution to the floor of the Senate for a vote, its Democratic sponsor and co-sponsors voted “present.”
Many of the 2020 Democratic candidates have also voiced support for eroding various checks and balances in our constitutional system — for example, eliminating the Electoral College. “[W]e’ve got to repair our democracy,” said South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. “The Electoral College needs to go because it’s made our society less and less democratic.” He is joined in this by Harris, Booker, Warren, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and Gillibrand, each of whom has lent support to the abolition of the Electoral College.
Finally, there is the matter of reparations for slavery, which has been championed by Warren and New York City mayor and potential 2020 candidate Bill de Blasio, the latter of which called for a “program of actual redistribution which includes much heavier taxes on the wealthy.”
I did not think it was possible, but at the rate that things are going, President Trump is going to go into the 2020 general election looking like the moderate choice.
