It took them a little more than a month.

Since Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi reclaimed the gavel for the first time in nearly a decade, the Democrat Party has been riding high.

President Donald Trump lost the first round of the battle with Democrats over his planned border wall, ending the longest government shutdown in history a few weeks ago–with no wall funding, despite a promise not to make such a concession.

Pelosi, gloating, signed the three-week continuing resolution with eight different ceremonial pens and rubbed it in by framing herself as somehow equal to the president in terms of power–even though, constitutionally, practically, and by any other measure the legislative office of the Speaker of the House is inferior to the executive office of the President of the United States.

Meanwhile, Democrats throughout the party have been launching their presidential primary campaigns–vying for the shot at a one-on-one battle with Trump in the November 2020 general election–in speeches, media tours, social media blitzes, and stunts filled with missives at the president and red political meat for the Democrat base.

But the good times for Democrats have come to a screeching halt in the past few weeks. A raft of scandals involving racism, antisemitism, radicalism, allegations of sexual assault, and extreme views on a variety of issues has hit the Democrat Party hard as it slinks back into the limelight after a two-year period of GOP control of all levers of government in Washington and most state governments across the country.

These hurdles threaten the Democrat Party’s chances at a return to national power in 2020, with its rising stars and key players throughout the federal and state governments tangled in a web of problems that could cost Democrats the White House in two years and more deeply hurt the party in down-ticket races while tearing down fragile coalitions assembled by Democrat leaders desperate to put a check on Trump.

Trump has taken advantage of the Democrats’ misfortunes, first delivering a State of the Union address last week that received rave reviews from the public per post-speech polling, then hitting El Paso, Texas, on Monday evening for a rally where he bashed Democrats and the media as per usual but also began laying the groundwork for the core themes of 2020. Trump beat up the Democrats on these scandals and ripped his political opposition’s emerging extreme views on a variety of issues, all while celebrating a new poll that has him surging up at a 52 percent approval rating–the highest he’s had in years.

The scandals are far-reaching, and affect the highest levels of the party. The policy developments on everything from environmental issues to life to immigration are equally profound and deep-seated in the Democrat Party. How its leaders handle all of this will determine much in the way of whether voters will give Democrats a chance in the next presidential election and, perhaps more importantly in the meantime, affect their ability to be part of the governing conversation in Washington or govern states like Virginia where the entire party leadership is embroiled in scandal.

“THE INFANT WOULD BE KEPT COMFORTABLE”

The Democrat Party’s streak of bad luck started in late January when Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, in the wake of the introduction of a late-term abortion bill from Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran that would allow abortions as late into pregnancy as when a mother is going into labor, advocated for infanticide.

In an interview with WTOP, the Democrat governor said:

This is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians, and the mothers and fathers that are involved. When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physician—more than one physician, by the way—and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non-viable.

Northam, who was a doctor before running for office, added that even if a baby is born alive he or she would be “kept comfortable” until doctors and the mother decide whether to keep it alive–essentially offering up the choice to murder the child after he or she has been born:

If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. So I think this was really blown out of proportion. We want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions.

Northam’s extreme views on killing babies after they are born coincided with the New York legislature and Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo putting in place a new law in the state that guarantees a “fundamental right” to abortion. The radical law enshrines a “right” to an abortion through the third trimester of pregnancy up to and including during the giving of birth, among other extreme provisions. Cuomo has come under serious fire from all sides for backing it, and he took to the pages of the New York Times to write an op-ed defending himself, claiming he was an “altar boy” growing up and that his duty is to enforce the law, not his personal beliefs.

But it’s not just a couple of governors or a handful of state legislators who are embracing this radical view on abortion, where politicians are pushing policies that amount to murder of already-born children or abortion as mothers are giving birth: It’s the whole Democrat Party in Washington, at the direction of Pelosi, that has refused to allow votes on the House floor for four straight legislative days now on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act from Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO).

The legislation, which passed the House last Congress on a bipartisan basis, would afford various legal and health protections to babies born alive after failed abortions–including requiring them to be taken to a hospital and given medical care by health professionals. Republicans, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other top House GOP officials confirmed to Breitbart News, intend to seek unanimous consent to force a vote on the bill every day that the House is in session until Pelosi relents. For now, Pelosi–through her designated floor officials, other Democrats who are supportin her on this–has blocked the effort four times and is expected to continue to do so. Republicans are prepared to go all year if necessary.

“What the Democrats have done is taken this radically callous position toward life,” McCarthy said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel this weekend. “The president spoke about this trying to give voice to the voiceless in the State of the Union address. I thought he did a terrific job. But when you look at what the Democrats have done in New York and now in Virginia, talking about infanticide, I mean this is crazy what they are doing.”

LISTEN TO HOUSE MINORITY LEADER KEVIN MCCARTHY ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY:

For now, Democrats remain opposed to any vote to protect babies once they are already born–instead pushing for opening common-sense restrictions on abortion. But that’s not the only area where the Democrat Party has veered far from mainstream policy into the realm of the extreme.

A GREEN NEW DEAL

The other major development in the wake of Trump’s State of the Union aaddress last week was the rollout by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), an openly devout socialist, of her so-called “Green New Deal” legislation. Once Ocasi0-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the bill, nearly every Democrat running for president signed on within the first 24 hours.

The introduction was panned by virtually everyone and the policy in it is viewed as seriously “flawed” even by top elements of the left:

It’s so bad for Democrats that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, is mulling whether or not to just call a vote on the Senate floor on the Green New Deal to expose the Democrats’ extremism:

But it was no matter to the rising hard left of the Democrat Party: They signed onto it anyway. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) all backed the deal, as did many other top Democrats. In the House, more than 60 Democrats hopped onto the bill without a second thought.

When one pulls open the hood and looks at what’s actually in it, the Green New Deal plan is nothing more than a radical socialist policy pipe dream wrapped in euphemistically-worded environmentalism. The plan would eliminate much air travel and the internal combustion engine that powers most vehicles in America, while making a shift to 100 percent renewable energy within ten years–essentially wiping out the U.S. energy industry. One study shows it would entirely derail the economy of the state of Colorado, but on the good side, socialist Ocasio-Cortez says the Green New Deal will pay Americans who are “unwilling to work.”

“It’s kind of a marvel how in one month, this month-old new legislator has been able to develop a following that’s now being joined by a lot of senior members of the Congress,” Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), an ally of Trump and critic of the socialist plan, told Breitbart News Saturday this weekend. “They’re all jumping onto a group of very aspirational socialist ideas. There’s nothing new in these programs–they just bundle them all together into one resolution. It means nothing, but it’s a talking point just to get people excited. But I got to tell you, I’m from Pennsylvania–coal country, we’re part of the Marcellus [Shale] natural gas. I believe in all-of-the-above when it comes to energy, but let’s also rely on all of the below. We have tremendous stores of energy in our country right now. You talk about the internal combustion engine–if there was one thing that opened up our entire country from border to border, it’s the development of the automobile.”

LISTEN TO REP. MIKE KELLY (R-PA) ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY:

But the Green New Deal would essentially end the automobile as America knows it if the plan were actually implemented, and with so many high-profile Democrats including many of the party’s presidential hopefuls signing up for the package as cosponsors and supporters, they are essentially campaigning on ending the jobs of millions of Americans.

“I hope your listeners are reading the damage this Green New Deal would do, the damage it would do to our middle class, the damage it would do to our economy,” McCarthy, the Minority Leader in the House, added in an interview on Breitbart News Saturday. “It’s not even a bill, I guess it’s a resolution what they’re talking about–but the Democratic frontrunners who are supporting this going to zero emission. Tell me how you’re going to have cars? How would you have planes? How would you have jobs? The people it will hurt most is the middle class. You’d have to redo every building within the next ten years. This is really when you listen to the new freshman Democrats–they don’t even really call themselves Democrats, they call themselves ‘Democrat Socialists’–this is what the president in the State of the Union was standing up to, that there will never be socialism in America. But this is the battle of what I see going forward into the next election. It is socialism versus the freedoms we’ve fought for and understood this country to stand for. It goes against pretty much the core of what we believe.”
Donald Trump, Jr., the president’s eldest son, was even harsher during his speech at Monday night’s rally in El Paso. Trump, Jr., said from the stage to the thousands listening:

The left, at this point, you know what they are? They’re like a caricature of themselves. I see the Green New Deal. ‘We’re going to ban airline travel. We’re going to ban the internal combustion engine. We’re going to just let people who don’t want to work–we’re going to take care of them anyway. And it’s all going to pay for themselves.’ What planet are they on? What planet are they on? Because it ain’t earth. But what’s even better is all of the Democratic frontrunners, they’re jumping on it. ‘Oh–I need to be a part of this!’ They’re all adopting this. So, they’re taking the platform which has now been ridiculed mercilessly by everyone, they’re taking the platform of a freshman congressman who two weeks ago did not know the three branches of government. I don’t know about you folks, I don’t know, but I don’t want to stake my children or their children’s after them futures on that kind of lunacy. It doesn’t work.

That new class of Democrat Socialists that McCarthy described is causing more serious problems for the Democrat Party as a whole outside of Ocasio-Cortez’s extreme Green New Deal offering: Radical antisemitic views from at least two of them are presenting serious problems for Democrats nationally who are struggling with how to deal with a party that has veered into such extremes after spending years accusing the other side of promoting bigotry.

“ANTI-SEMITIC TROPES”
While Ocasio-Cortez gets the lion’s share of attention among the new clicque of self-described Democrat Socialists elected in the 2018 midterm election, it’s her comrade Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) whose antisemitic comments this week threw the Democrat Party for yet another wild loop.

In a series of tweets late Sunday evening, Omar–a Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota who was once a refugee from Somalia before permanently settling in America with her family–bashed American politicians who support Israel as somehow being paid off by AIPAC.

Critics immediately ripped Omar from all directions, including perhaps most interestingly from inside the Democrat Party. Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and failed 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, was the first high-profile Democrat to rip Omar.

Omar played it cool in response to the former first daughter, attempting to blame Republicans for the problem:

But unluckily for Omar, it didn’t end Sunday night–and that initial response was far from enough to stop the bleeding.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Monday ripped Democrats for not doing anything in response to Omar’s antisemitic commentary:

As did the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY):

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee–on which Omar serves, a placement decision made by Pelosi and her team at the beginning of the Congress–also ripped Omar:

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the most prominent Jewish members of Congress, said Omar’s use of anti-Semitic stereotypes was “offensive and irresponsible”:

The House Democrat Leadership issued a joint statement ripping Omar’s antisemitic tropes, as well. Pelosi even tweeted the joint statement from Democrat leadership on Capitol Hill, adding that she had spoken with Omar about antisemitism:

It was only after all of that that Omar offered a sort-of-apology for her antisemitic comments, a pseudo apology in which she again bashes McCarthy–essentially repeating the original attack:

But there were no actual consequences for Omar’s comments other than some public shaming from her party’s leadership. She got to keep her plum committee assignments, including a spot on that Foreign Affairs Committee from which she will be able to influence U.S. foreign policy toward places like Israel, a country she clearly despises.

President Trump, asked about it on his way to El Paso, clearly did not think it was enough:

And if what she did just a few hours after the “apology” was any indication, per the Washington Times, she was immediately at it again later the same day, retweeting more antisemitic commentary–this time with some attacks on Pelosi.

Trump, asked on Tuesday for further thoughts on Omar, seized the burgeoning Democrat scandal to sow more division in Democrat ranks. The president said she should resign from Congress over her antisemitic views–or at least resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

The latest whirlwind for Omar that started Sunday night was hardly the first time she has been caught up in an antisemitic scandal–and she is not the only freshman Democrat Socialist who thinks this way. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), another Democrat Socialist and also a Muslim woman elected in the 2018 midterm elections, wrote for renowned antisemite Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam newspaper. In the 2006 column for Farrakhan’s newspaper, Tlaib wrote an impassioned plea for stopping deportation of illegal aliens for what she deemed “minor offenses,” pushing for legislation that would protect illegal aliens. Farakkhan is a known antisemite who has publicly compared Jews to “termites” on Twitter.

Tlaib, of course, is the Democrat who on the first day of the new Congress was in a bar celebrating being sworn in on Capitol Hill and was filmed saying “We’re gonna impeach the motherfucker” about President Trump. While Pelosi said she did not like Tlaib’s use of foul “language,” she actually defended Tlaib.

All of this extremism was known to Democrats and in the public sphere before this week, as McCarthy noted in his Breitbart News Saturday exclusive this past weekend–before Omar’s latest episode.

“If you have been watching and listening to what some of the new Democrat members have been saying and attacking when it comes to people of the Jewish faith, and others, it’s antisemitic, their words and their language,” McCarthy said. “When we had challenges on our side for different issues, you watched our leadership stand up to the responsibility and deal with it. Nancy Pelosi has not said a word. When you watch the new Congresswoman come in and watch who her donors were and impeaching and calling the president names. Nancy Pelosi did not say a word. So that means she’s supportive of these actions. Lee Zeldin has introduced a resolution in this process, and I have sat back and watched Nancy Pelosi–given her an opportunity to stand up to her own members and the antisemitic action that they have taken and say it is wrong and put them on a different course. If she does not do something, we will take action on the floor.”

The antisemitism is hardly the only identity problem hurting Democrats right now. Back down in Virginia, a trio of scandals have hindered the entire government of the state–the number one, two, and three officials in state government, all Democrats–from being able to execute their offices.

BLACKFACE OR KU KLUX KLAN? 

Northam, the same Democrat governor of Virginia under fire for radical abortion comments, has been assailed for a racist photograph that appeared on his medical school yearbook page that surfaced in the wake of his abortion extremism. The photograph portrayed two men side-by-side in racist garb, one wearing blackface and the other in Ku Klux Klan robes. Some reports suggest that the photo came out because Northam’s use of his history as a doctor to promote the abortion radicalism enraged his former medical school classmates.

Northam originally admitted that he was one of the people in the picture but did not specify whether he was the man in blackface or the man in the Ku Klux Klan regalia. But later, as calls for his resignation mounted with nearly every national Democrat pushing for his ouster, Northam walked that back, claiming he was not either of the men in the photograph and that he did not know how it got onto his yearbook page.

Even so, the Washington Post confirmed in its reporting that students at the medical school selected what photographs went on their pages–and designed the pages themselves:

Northam, in response to rising pressure and calls for his resignation from top Democrats, has dug in, refusing to resign.

“This is the first time I have ever seen that picture,” Northam, for instance, said in a recent interview with CBS News’s Gayle King when she asked how it ended up on his yearbook page.

“How could that be? It was on your yearbook page, governor,” King pushed back.

“Well, I was shocked to see it,” Northam replied. “I really believe if you look at the unpreparedness of me to react to this both on Friday night and Saturday, that really confirms that this is the first time.”

In the King interview, and in a prior interview in the Washington Post, Northam has attempted to frame the whole debacle as an “opportunity” to “learn” on race matters. He even told King he was “born in white privilege.”

While the public may never know the truth about who the two men are in the photograph on Northam’s yearbook page, or how it got there, the public does know–thanks to Northam’s first press conference on this matter–that Northam did partake in the racist practice of wearing blackface.

He admits that in the same year he wore blackface to a Michael Jackson-themed moonwalking dance contest–and that somehow that absolves him from the whole mess:

He further explained at that press conference that the way he “darkened” his face to wear blackface was with shoe polish:

As for his learning experience tour, when describing slaves brought to the United States–then the American colonies of the British Empire–four hundred years ago during his interview with King, Northam referred to the first slaves to arrive from Africa as “indentured servants.”

But Northam is not the only racial problem white Democrats in Virginia’s old guard have–in fact, the number three in line for the governorship, Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring, has also admitted to wearing blackface in college.

Interestingly, or perhaps all too predictably, Herring actually called on Northam to resign–for doing exactly the same thing he himself admitted to:

Trump seems to be getting a kick out of the whole mess surrounding the Democrats in Virginia, especially Northam. In his El Paso rally on Monday night, he noted that Northam’s problems keep the focus off himself:

Unluckily for the Democrats nationally, especially those in Virginia, this entire giant scandal for their party does not end there.

“PREMEDITATED AND AGGRESSIVE” ALLEGED RAPE

Virginia’s Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax has been credibly accused of sexual assault by two women, including one who accuses him of raping her.

Dr. Vanessa Tyson accused Fairfax first, alleging he sexually assaulted her after consensual kissing spun out of control in a hotel room at the 2004 Democrat National Convention in Boston:

Fairfax denied the allegations, but Tyson has–like Fairfax’s second accuser–said she is willing to testify about the encounter. Fairfax has pushed for no public hearings.

Then, following Fairfax’s denial of the first accuser’s accusations, a second woman, Meredith Watson, came forward alleging that Fairfax raped her in college at Duke in North Carolina:

When Fairfax denied Watson’s account, as he denied Tyson’s account, Watson’s attorneys fired back with a harsh statement. Both of the women have retained counsel, and both are fighting for legal recourse and hearings about their encounters with Fairfax:

All of this has much higher-reaching political implications for Democrats, throughout Virginia and beyond. In response to Northam’s problems, for instance, former Vice President Joe Biden–a widely-discussed potential 2020 presidential contender–called for Northam to resign and said Fairfax is who Virginia needs to lead it now:

But Biden has not said anything in response to the Fairfax allegations. He has not said whether he believes Watson’s or Tyson’s accounts. He has not said whether he thinks Fairfax could effectively serve Virginia with these allegations hanging over his head. And he has not said whether he thinks it is acceptable for Herring, the Democrat Attorney General in Virginia, to have worn blackface like Northam.

FIFTY-TWO PERCENT
While the Democrats tear each other apart over all of the scandal, over on the GOP side of things Trump is having a grand ole time. On Monday, new polling from Rasmussen Reports had Trump up at 52 percent approval rating–the highest of his presidency–coming off his State of the Union address and heading into a speech on the U.S. border with Mexico in El Paso, Texas.

Trump blew away former failed 2018 Senate candidate Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s counter-rally crowd in O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso:

Americans widely approved of Trump’s State of the Union address:

So, in his El Paso rally on Monday night, the president carried the same central message–handed to him on a silver platter by the Democrats’ missteps at the beginning of this new Congress–of pledging that America will never succumb to socialism.

Trump still has many hurdles ahead, from the ongoing negotiations over government funding for the border wall to China to North Korea to the unfolding situation in Venezuela to major policy fights with Democrats going forward. But Democrats are, for now, handing him exactly what he needs to win.