The Race To The Bottom

     For a while, Biden appeared to be the front-runner with his “garbage” comment. Then Obama edged up on him with his “Republicans are divisive” speech. And of course we could never count Kamala Harris out of the race, with all her “fascist” and “danger to democracy” chanting. Mustn’t forget the Great Has-Beens Bill and Hillary Clinton, either.

     But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a new contender for the title of Most Vicious Politician in America, 2024 arose and passed the rest of the field at a sprint:

     That’s right, Gentle Reader: the governor of the fourth most populous state in the Union openly condemned Republicans as “anti-American.” Why? Well, when the stakes are this high, a gal has to pull out all the stops, right? Besides, this is nothing new from Kathy Hochul. Two years ago, she counseled New York Republicans to move to Florida:

     Gov. Kathy Hochul sparked controversy Monday night by saying political opponents like Republican gubernatorial nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin ought to ditch New York as she rallied with fellow Democrats ahead of a special election in Congressional District 19 in the Hudson Valley.
     “We are fighting for democracy. We’re fighting to bring government back to the people and out of the hands of dictators,” Hochul said at a Monday evening rally in Kingston alongside Democratic congressional candidate Pat Ryan, where she called out his Republican opponent, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, Zeldin and former President Donald Trump.
     “Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. OK? Get out of town. Because you don’t represent our values,” added Hochul, who raised eyebrows last week for a dig against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a Manhattan event commemorating the Holocaust.

     But calling us in the Right “anti-American” does constitute turning it up to eleven. I suppose Hochul is vying for a place among the Democrat elite. Too bad, Kathy: there’s no room for a minor-league New York pol, an accidental governor, among the Democrat heavy hitters. If the Cuomos couldn’t leap that high, you surely can’t. (No, higher heels wouldn’t help.)

     New York has many problems, nearly all of them the product of too much government. New Yorkers outside the Big Apple media bubble know it well. Even here on Long Island, uncomfortably close to the Five Boroughs of Bedlam, the prevailing sentiment toward the state government and its works is Keep your distance. We want nothing from you.

     Under Democrat governance, New York has been losing population, business, and revenue. Much of that stems from New York City under super-nanny Michael Bloomberg, the Marxist regime of Bill De Blasio, and the incompetence of Eric Adams. Yet even inland New Yorkers have sensed that the state has become ever less hospitable to people who merely want to earn a living and be left alone. New York Democrats’ war on the right to keep and bear arms alone has accounted for a significant fraction of the outflow. Impoverishment through taxation and regulation, as company after company folds its tent and silently departs the land of Excelsior, accounts for most of the rest.

     I’m a lifelong New Yorker. I once contemplated moving, but too much of what I value is immovably here, including nearly all the people I love. So I too am desperate for a revival of what once made it the Empire State. But it’s not looking good. How could it, with the state governor going out of her way to alienate nearly half of us: the productive, civil, law-abiding half? Dare I say the better half?

     My one cheering thought is that if Hochul’s attitude is representative of the attitude among Democrat pols who fancy themselves “up and comers,” I might see the collapse of that thoroughly corrupt party before I die. And good BLEEP!ing riddance to it.

     Conservative New Yorkers: It’s time to take command of the Republican Party and make it what it should be, rather than a minor-league imitation of the Democrats that just promises to “do it cheaper.”