Democrats Have Become The ‘No You Can’t’ Party

Americans rejected Kamala Harris because she reminded them of a condescending administrator who cloaks her incompetence by scolding everyone smarter than her. In response to her crushing defeat, Democrats made that persona their entire personality.

When the Trump administration arrived in Washington with an air of “we can just do things,” the media and other Democrats stepped into the unflattering role of sore losers screeching “you can’t do that.” (Where, oh where, was this principled originalist restraint when the last administration tried to jail a political opponent while propping up a Potemkin president?)

Trump’s approach has conservatives wondering: What were Republicans doing for our entire lives? All these years of talk about bloated government, and this whole time we could just stop sending tens of thousands of dollars to fund transgender comic books in Peru? All those strongly worded statements about men in girls’ locker rooms, and all it took was the guts to say, enough?

Meanwhile, his approach has his perennial critics tripping over themselves to scold and condescend about every victory voters are cheering. How dare you complain about your tax dollars funding condoms for terrorists? The feds weren’t really paying off Politico for its positive coverage, they were just buying an absurd number of five-figure subscriptions. You’re so un-Christian for caring more about the safety of your family than those poor criminals ICE is sending back across the border!

It’s an optical rake the left keeps stepping on. No one thinks “curtailing government’s power and reach” is “the most damaging” thing to ever happen except the bad guys. It has never been clearer how much the people who grease the Washington blob hate Americans.

Take the panic over Elon Musk bringing in a few twenty-something brainiacs to help cut government waste. They are “lacking in government experience,” the media warn. Government experience, after all, is what has made our bloated federal bureaucracy so efficient and productive in serving taxpayers! I bet the customer service reps at the IRS have lots of government experience.

The problem is, government experience has never been responsible for American greatness. We never would have made it to the moon if the space program was run by a Dr. Fauci type. We never would have made it to Berlin with Mark Milley.

As often as not, American greatness has happened in an attempt to prove the “you can’t do thats” wrong. Rebellion is our founding myth, after all! We carved a nation out of a continent because we believed we could and were bold and young and inventive enough to try, not because we trusted the experts.

Chuck Yeager was 24 years old when he broke the sound barrier. He did so with two broken ribs and closed his aircraft’s hatch with a broom handle because his injury wouldn’t let him reach the hatch. It’s a good thing OSHA wasn’t there to tell him that wasn’t safe!

The youngest man who explored the Louisiana Territory in the Corps of Discovery was 17; at 33, William Clark was one of the old men of the group. The Wright brothers were in their 30s when their flyer lifted off at Kill Devil Hills. So save me the hand-wringing if some young men are here to help drain the swamp — the rest of America is happy to see them.

Joe Biden was right about one thing: There is a battle for the soul of America. It’s the caffeinated real estate mogul and his millennial veep versus The Experts who have been running things into the ground and getting pensions for it. It’s the kids with new ideas versus the Chuck Schumer types, who are literally shaking their canes. It’s the people who believe in ordering their loves around their families and communities before the rest of the world, versus the people who care more about starting foreign wars than keeping your streets safe.

The former kind of people built America — the people who were young and reckless enough not to realize they were doing things once deemed impossible. The latter category would have grounded Yeager’s plane for not being up to code and told Lewis and Clark their band of explorers didn’t have enough biracial lesbians in it.

It’s not like statue-toppling, self-flagellating Democrats have made a secret of hating America. But their derision for American history has given way to derision for the American spirit, and it’s playing out with a candor that’s kind of amazing. The party that catapulted Barack Obama on the slogan “Yes We Can” has become the party of “No You Can’t.” They stand athwart history yelling, you’re not authorized to do that without permission!

In the battle between the “just do things” and the “you can’t do thats,” whose side do you want to be on?

Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women’s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_ellepurnell.