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Sen. Tim Kaine was, unfortunately, on Fox “News” this morning, as for whatever reason he thinks it makes sense to go on that right-wing-propaganda network. And no, I don’t get it at all, but “it is what it is,” as the saying goes. Anyway, not surprisingly, the Fox “News” host (Shannon Bream) asked Sen. Kaine a bunch of biased, leading questions – including the following, in which Bream clearly tried to imply that the Democratic Party is being taken over by “socialists,” also that “The DSA Is a Parasite,” per an article in The Atlantic. Sen. Kaine’s response was as follows:
“I do think the Democratic Party has always been known – and mostly this is good, sometimes it’s not – as a big tent. And so I don’t think that somebody says ‘I’m a DSA candidate’, I don’t think you should use that to throw them out. Why would you do that? Candidates have to rise and fall on their own merits. And so whether you’re a DSA member, a Third Way Democrat, or i just call myself a small-d democrat, people have to put their platform before voters and try to be responsive to voters, and voters get to judge them. But to have a litmus test that if somebody says ‘hey, I’m a DSA member,’ you know, they can’t be part of the party, I strongly disagree with that.”
Personally, I agree that Democrats have been and must continue to be a “big-tent” party, basically comprised of everyone who supports democracy and opposes authoritarianism, fascism, etc. I’d just add that there are some people – bigots of any kind, for instance – who should NEVER be a Democratic nominee for ANY office. I’d also argue that if a candidate spends more of their time (or even equal amounts of time) attacking *Democrats* than Republicans (Democratic candidates should be spending almost all their time laying out their own ideas and attacking Republicans, with close to zero amount of their time spent on intra-party attacks), why the hell would any Democrat want to nominate them for public office? I really don’t get that. But sure, someone like that is free to TRY – and hopefully fail badly – to get the Democratic nomination for whatever office.
UPDATED: Sen. Kaine continued…
“Many of [the DSA’s platform] pieces – no…the DSA is not huge in Virginia, and I’m an expert on one state’s politics. Many DSA members I know, they don’t want to abolish the Senate, they don’t want to abolish the presidency, they want reforms of ICE, but they recognize that there need to be effective border policies. So, just like if you say somebody’s a Democrat, you can’t assume you know every position that they hold. Or somebody’s a Republican, you can’t assume you know every position that they hold. I think there’s a lot of flavors within the DSA just as there are within the Democratic Party. That’s why it’s up to individual candidates to stand on their own, answer questions honestly about where they are, and then voters can can choose. In Virginia, you know, I think we’ve got a pretty good track record. In my time in politics, we’ve gone from a state that was essentially completely red in 2001 to one that is now more blue than red. We’re still battleground. We still have to fight hard to win elections, but we’ve done it by being pro-growth progressives, by emphasizing economic progress. Virginia was just named one of the best three states for business in the country with Democratic legislature and Democratic governor. So, we’ve got a Democratic message that works here, but that message does not involve pushing people away. It means trying to embrace as many people as we can.”
BTW, this interview is a prime example of why Democrats shouldn’t go on Fox “News.” I mean, they have Sen. Tim Kaine on their show, and spend the ENTIRE INTERVIEW talking about the b.s. non-issue of “illegal immigrants voting,” “the Democratic Party is turning socialist,” etc. Why even play into that crap?
