Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

June 28, 2019

Demo Debate 2: ‘Food Fight’

Along with pushing further left, this contest featured far more personal attacks.

If the Democrats’ first presidential debate was an exercise in pushing the envelope as far left as possible, the second debate involving the next slate of candidates was a political cage match of personal attacks.

The candidates Thursday night: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, and Eric Swalwell.

The punches were primarily thrown at Biden, who leads the field. And the hardest ones were thrown by Harris, who Mark Alexander argues may join Biden on the ticket. After last night, they’d have to bury a few hatchets.

Harris the prosecutor showed up to tell the jury why Biden isn’t the right guy. She hit him for his record on race, saying, “I do not believe you are a racist … but it was actually very hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and careers on the segregation of race in this country. … You also worked with them to oppose busing.” She recounted how she benefited from busing as a little girl.

Biden, the vice president for America’s first black president, shot back, “It’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists.” In fact, he said, “I ran because of civil rights.” After bickering with Harris over his record, Biden eventually gave up, saying, “Anyway, my time’s up.” Wrong thing for a 76-year-old with a near-50-year career in Washington politics to say.

Biden 2020: “My time’s up.”

On that note, one of the other zingers of the night was from Swalwell, who said, “I was six years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said, ‘It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.’ That candidate was then-Senator Joe Biden. Joe Biden was right 32 years ago, and he’s still right today.”

Sanders, 77, didn’t take too kindly to that, blasting the assertion as “ageism” in post-debate comments. But though the old socialist tried to set himself up for the debate with an op-ed selling socialist snake oil, he fell rather flat. His most memorable line might be that he opened the debate by admitting that taxes will necessarily go up for the middle class to pay for his income-redistribution schemes. “Yes, they will pay more in taxes,” he said, “but less in health care for what they get.” The question is this: What kind of health care will we get? It won’t be good.

Sidebar on immigration and health care: All 10 candidates raised their hands when asked if government health care should be provided for illegal aliens. Astounding.

As for “Mayor Pete,” he is the Democrats’ version of John Kasich. He made his mark by sanctimoniously telling Christians how to do politics. Buttigieg lectured, “For a party that associates itself with Christianity to say … that God would condone putting children in cages has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.” It’s a tiresome act now, just as it was for Kasich in 2016.

One stand-out line: Harris, the media’s consensus “winner,” stopped a lot of crosstalk arguing by saying, “You know what, folks, Americans don’t want to witness a food fight. They want to hear how we’re going to put food on their table.” That is not the president’s job, and it’s exactly what’s wrong with today’s Democrat Party, brought to you by a woman who promises to do everything by executive order.

The next Democrat debates are July 30 and 31 in Detroit.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.