Editorial

Chelsea Manning’s Platform Will One Day Be The Democratic Mainstream

Scott Greer Contributor
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Famed leaker Chelsea Manning is running for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, and the transgender activist has quite the platform for a Democratic primary.

Manning’s top three issues, according to a recent Associated Press profile: eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), abolish national borders and close down all prisons.

All of these ideas would have earned the mockery of Democrats just a few years ago, but now at least one of Manning’s issues has mainstream acceptance among liberals: getting rid of ICE.

Back in March, Vox reported on how this position has become more popular on the Left. Mainstream figures like former Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon have demanded ICE cease to exist and Democrats campaign on that proposal. California Sen. Kamala Harris, a 2020 Democratic presidential front runner, has to field questions on the subject from MSNBC hosts. Illegal immigrant advocacy groups are fully behind the idea of abolishing ICE.

Many on the Left now support this idea because progressives see the agency as engaged in “ethnic cleansing” and view deportation as morally reprehensible.

That position squares nicely with the belief that America should have open borders. While most Democrats and liberals still insist on having borders with lax immigration enforcement, it’s not out of the question for the consensus to move to eradicating borders all together.

Several leftists have made a variation of “no borders” a motto. Democratic National Committee vice chair Keith Ellison was spotted recently wearing a shirt calling for open borders — in Spanish, no less. Protesters of President Donald Trump’s travel ban chanted “No borders. No nations. Fuck deportations,” in 2017.

As a party, Democrats are horrified by the idea of having a fortified border between the U.S. and Mexico and oppose every White House measure aimed at enforcing federal immigration law. They also can never summon the will to say America has a right to restrict who comes here.

Democrats are for open borders without officially saying so. Left-wing pressure in the future could force the party to make it their public stance.

Closing prisons is Manning’s only stance that liberals may consider too fringe. Criminal justice reform is immensely popular among Democrats, but that doesn’t mean shutting down all jails and freeing the prisoners.

Imprisoning the entire Trump administration is the number one liberal fantasy — how will you accomplish that if you eliminate jails?

However, that doesn’t preclude the proposal from one day gaining more traction. The Left frequently lambastes America’s prison system as modern-day slavery. It incarcerates too many African Americans and is therefore inherently racist.

The Left could easily make the argument that prisons must be eliminated in order to combat white supremacy and inequality. The guy who raped and murdered your cousin just needs to be rehabilitated, not spend life in jail.

The Democratic Socialists of America, a group that’s gaining in prominence and represents the the vanguard of the Left, has endorsed prison abolition, signaling the idea’s possible acceptance by the liberal mainstream in the future.

All of Manning’s proposals would lead to anarchy and a reduction in the quality of life in America. Everyone in the world could come here to rob you without punishment. No one would be deported, and no crime — regardless how horrific it is — would lead to jail time.

These ideas would have once been laughed out of consideration by Democrats wanting to appeal to normal Americans. But with the left-wing fringe having a greater say in the party, its insane position now have a chance of becoming the Democratic consensus.

The new progressive morality dictates criminals are victims and borders are racist. Liberals are just catching up.

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