The Democrat field of 25 announced candidates is, on the one hand, a clown car full of people who can’t possibly be serious about being president along with a few who have a legitimate shot. But the amalgam, as on display in last night’s Part I of II debate featuring 10 of those candidates, reveals that the party strategy is to cultivate a constituency of dunces around various issues and offers of “free” stuff — all to be brought together under one Hate Trump banner in time for 2020.

The candidates on stage: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Beto O'Rourke, Bill de Blasio, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, Tim Ryan, and John Delaney. Ten more will debate tonight.

As for last night, we’ll focus on three examples of the effort to push the envelope as far to the left as possible, testing messaging for the general election and bringing Democrat voters together.

Economy

Warren led the charge on this one, revealing the party’s strategy. If Democrats can’t get the recession they want, they’ll go with their bread-and-butter standby: envy.

“Who is this economy really working for?” Warren asked in a common theme for the debate. “It’s doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.” Warren pointed to Big Pharma and Big Oil, as well as the prison system, as examples. She’s not entirely unfounded in diagnosing the problems, but she is grossly wrong about the solutions. “When you’ve got a government, when you’ve got an economy that does great for those with money and isn’t doing great for everyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple,” she thundered. The economy, she insists, is “rigged.” Warren’s solution? More government — telling business how and what to sell and consumers what they’re allowed to buy. Her real gripe is merely one of who’s doing the “rigging.”

De Blasio made this plain, saying there’s “plenty of money,” but “it’s just in the wrong hands.”

In any case, it’s rather hilarious to hear Warren talking about anything being “rigged” when she parlayed her phony minority ancestry into a posh Harvard job. Moreover, she and her husband have an estimated net worth of as much as $10 million, which puts even millionaire socialist Bernie Sanders to shame. Must be hard being that “thinner slice at the top.”

Health Care

Warren and de Blasio were the only two candidates on stage to raise their hands when asked if they’d be willing to abolish private insurance. De Blasio, who never saw a private enterprise he didn’t want to destroy, even rebuked former Leftmedia heartthrob O'Rourke for “defending the private insurance industry.”

Again, Democrats are testing the waters to see how voters react to the idea of losing their private insurance. Medicare for All is popular … until people realize the implications.

Immigration

This time it was Castro offering up the most “progressive” proposition. He has called for repealing the federal law that makes illegally crossing the border a crime, and he demanded the others on stage line up behind him.

We’ve all seen the very real border crisis fomented by Democrats’ invasion invitation, marked by 144,000 apprehended or rejected migrants in May alone. Castro’s policy is to inject that with steroids.

Democrat pandering peaked with O'Rourke, Booker, and Castro each breaking into Spanish.

Other Notables

Speaking of Castro, the man aiming to lead the Party of Science™ arguably had the most bizarre line of the night when he claimed he believes in “reproductive justice,” which means taxpayer-funded abortions … including for “a trans female.” Uh, that would also be known as “a man.” Do you even science, bro?

Then there was the moment when Cory Booker bragged about people getting shot in his neighborhood, as if that qualifies him to lead the charge on gun control. For sheer foolishness, he narrowly edged out Amy Klobuchar’s test for gun control: “Does this hurt my Uncle Dick in his deer stand?”

In summary, in addition to testing leftist messaging, every Democrat on stage, to varying degrees, thinks they can be more generous with your money, smarter with your decisions, and wiser with … well, everything than you can. Do Americans really want to put someone like that in the White House?