By Chris Powell
Anyone who thinks that Donald Trump is the country’s biggest demagogue should examine the remarks made by Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy last Saturday as the Democratic State Convention nominated him for a third term.
Trump, Murphy said, “wants to turn us against each other,” as if Murphy’s party isn’t preaching as much partisanship and hate — and, in Connecticut, a heavily Democratic state, far more.
Trump, Murphy continued, “wants to make Americans feel like we have something to fear from immigrants or trans kids or Muslims or college students. We believe, as Democrats, that America’s strength is our diversity and that everyone belongs here.”
So is there really nothing to worry about in seven million or so people who have entered the country illegally and unvetted under the open-borders policy of President Biden, whom Murphy wants re-elected and whose open-borders policy he still supports? Are schools, hospitals, medical and welfare programs, and police really not being overwhelmed or badly stressed by the open-borders policy? Are many immigration lawbreakers really not also ordinary criminals and repeat offenders?
Indeed, even as Murphy accepted renomination it was reported that more than 600 children who don’t speak English had enrolled in New Haven’s schools just since Oct. 1, most from outside the United States. Even before their arrival New Haven’s schools were performing terribly and couldn’t even get their washrooms repaired. How much more of Central America should New Haven and Connecticut have to educate when the city and the state can’t educate so many of their own children?
Murphy didn’t say, but with “everyone belongs here” he implied that there should be no limits on immigration and that anyone who supports ordinary immigration enforcement is racist.
As for “trans kids,” contrary to Murphy’s suggestion no one is demonizing them. The question about them is whether males belong in female sports, bathrooms, and prisons. Murphy demonizes those who raise the question.
As for Muslims and college students, some Muslims in the United States are attending Gaza war protests and chanting “Death to America!” while some college students are suppressing free speech on campuses. According to Murphy this is no big deal.
Murphy said: “This fall Donald Trump is going to advertise himself as a president who will destroy our democracy, who will use government to target political enemies, to walk away from the rule of law, legitimize violence as a political tool.”
Yet Democrats lately have been the ones trying to destroy democracy by preventing Trump from getting on presidential ballots, by prosecuting him criminally and civilly, and by failing to enforce immigration law.
“We believe that abortion is a right,” Murphy said. “We don’t believe that government should be in your bedroom or your doctor’s office.”
Yet most people, including most Democrats, believe, unlike Murphy, that abortion is a limited right, something to be restricted upon the viability of the fetus. That’s what the U.S. Supreme Court maintained in Roe v. Wade and what Connecticut law continues to maintain. But the senator supports what he and other extremists euphemize as the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would authorize abortion at every stage of pregnancy.
As for keeping government out of doctor’s offices, Murphy offered no criticism when the federal government, under both Trump and Biden, was striving to prevent doctors from prescribing ivermectin to treat Covid-19. Without complaint from Murphy the government still tells doctors not to do many other things. Somehow only abortion gets libertarian treatment from him.
Murphy told the Democratic convention that democracy is “under siege.” Is that because Trump’s lead over Biden in the polls lately has been increasing as the economy and Biden’s mental faculties weaken? Democrats certainly don’t think democracy is “under siege” in Connecticut, where Murphy is expected to cruise to re-election against a Republican who won’t have even a tiny fraction of the senator’s campaign money.
Indeed, Connecticut hardly has enough democracy left to be “under siege,” which is even sadder because Murphy’s demagoguery, hypocrisy, and nonsense will probably go unchallenged.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 
Always hard to pick my favorite sentence in these essays. This is certainly one of them: “Murphy demonizes those who raise the question.”
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