OPINION:
Seventy-four percent of registered voters who favor Joe Biden for president want government to grow bigger because they believe it’s the government’s job to provide more and more — and ever more — services, Pew Research found. By contrast, only 19 percent of Donald Trump’s base of support says similarly. In fact, 79 percent of Trumpsters think government needs to shrink and provide fewer and fewer — and ever fewer — services.
This is the war that divides America.
Another way to say this: Biden brings on the socialism big time. Trump’s MAGA is quite the opposite. Another way to look at it: This is what separates Republicans from Democrats these days — pro-America versus pro-socialist-slash-communist-slash-collectivist.
The battle in politics is not between American-loving pols who by and large agree this country is great and only differ in how they want to preserve that greatness, but rather between pols who hate America and want to destroy it from within versus all the others — versus all those pols who believe in the concept of American Exceptionalism; versus all those who understand the foundation of America’s freedoms stems from the idea that individual rights and liberties come from God, not government.
The war in America is over the idea of God-given versus government-granted.
And Pew shows just how difficult that war will be to win.
“Among registered voters, large majorities of Biden supporters — roughly three-quarters or more — favor a bigger, more activist government,” Pew wrote. “Seventy-four percent say they would rather have a bigger government providing more services. Seventy-six percent say government should do more to solve problems. Eighty percent say government aid to the poor ‘does more good than harm.’”
These are the entitled classes. These are the brainwashed youth. These are the illegals and bottom-feeders who come from countries where governments are corrupt and where the people have been trained to believe politicians are the ones with all the power — that the job of the politicians is to level the playing field by redistributing resources.
These are the Democrats.
The Founding Fathers provided a democratic-republic where voters, yes, decided who would represent them in office, but where rule of law and a Constitution, at the same time, limited the abilities of those in office to overreach. Rightful governance in America means the political class is actually a public service class, and the people get to boot from office those who refuse to respect the boundaries of the Constitution. Nowadays, due to Democrats and their progressive-socialist-communist-collectivist ways, much of government has simply become a tool of power and control for those who’ve been elected to office.
What’s more, Democrats don’t even want to keep the Constitution any longer, never mind its limits on politicians’ powers. It’s racist, they say. It’s out-of-date and discriminatory, they argue.
This tug of war of elites in political power who think they know better how to run individuals’ lives versus those who believe wholeheartedly in the concept of self-rule and in the idea of self-determination has waged for decades — since the founding of America, in fact, when some argued for a strong centralized government and others, for even stronger states’ rights. But with the turn toward secularism in America, and the ensuing shift in mindset that sets government, not God, as the provider of all, the danger to liberty has perhaps never been greater.
If Americans don’t keep the concept God-given rights and liberties intact, it’s only a matter of time before government assumes the role of provider and becomes a sort of god to the people. And how can Americans keep the concept of God-given intact if fewer and fewer Americas are going to church, reading the Bible, carrying their faith into politics and culture, taking their moral marching orders from the Creator, and insisting on Judeo-Christian principles on the public stage?
A secularized nation, in due time, is a socialist nation; a socialist nation, in due time, is a communist nation; and all socialist and communist nations at their root are collectivist countries, where the citizens exist solely to serve the state interests.
This Pew poll makes clear the November 2024 election isn’t simply a Biden versus Trump contest. It’s a point in time when Americans must decide: Are we to be free or are we to be socialist and communist?
Individualism cannot coexist with collectivism.
Democrats cannot be allowed to steal this nation’s exceptionalism under cover of providing “more services” to the people. That’s code for collectivism.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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