Cunningham wants the 1st District of South Carolina to think he is some type of moderate democrat – but he is far from it.

It’s a fair question to ask.  Why is the congressman representing the 1st Congressional district of South Carolina a Democrat?  What is it about the Democratic Party platform that sways Joe Cunningham, this self-proclaimed independent politician, to the left instead of the right?   Numerous attempts have been made to get Congressman Joe Cunningham to share with his constituents why he chooses to caucus with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rather than with House Minority Leader Congressman Kevin McCarthy.  Congressman Cunningham has yet to reply.

Cunningham is a Democrat instead of a Republican for a reason.  Actually, there must be many reasons why he supports the liberal agenda over the Republican Party platform.  For instance, Democrats want to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.  They also want to make labor unions more abundant.  They claim that unions mean higher wages while ignoring how many jobs have been lost due to union over-reach.  Look no further than Pennsylvania Steel to see what happens when union demands wipe out profitability. 

What the Democrats ignore is the thousands of mini-economies across America that produce thousands of different cost-of-living requirements.  We all know that the cost of living in Reading, PA is far lower than in Burbank, CA.  A $15 per hour minimum wage in Burbank is less of a burden on business than it would be in Reading.  The one size fits all federal minimum wage causes more harm than good in many regions of the United States.  In cities with high poverty rates and higher than the average unemployment rate, small businesses cannot afford to pay $15 per hour because they cannot raise their prices enough to cover this hourly rate.   Democrats like Cunningham forget that you need businesses to be in business to hire people in order for a worker to receive any hourly wage.  There is only so much burden that small businesses can carry before they are forced to close their doors for good.

Democrats also seem to forget that most often, issues and obstacles are best addressed and resolved at the local level.  If a state or a city wants to establish a minimum wage, so be it.  At least such an effort will hopefully be in harmony with local economies.  There’s a good reason why the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. 

According to their platform, Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice. They believe unequivocally, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.  Given the opportunity, Democrats like Joe Cunningham will restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood, even though nearly half the population of the United States considers abortion to be murder. 

Cunningham is on record as saying, “In Congress, I will fight to keep the government out of intimate healthcare decisions between a woman and her doctor, and I will oppose efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and other women’s health resources.”  What Cunningham wants to ignore is how painful it is for pro-life taxpayers to know that some of their hard-earned tax dollars are paying for babies to be aborted / killed.  Maybe it’s Cunningham’s support for abortions that makes him a Democrat.  It is clear that when it comes to abortion, Cunningham is far from independent.  He toes the party line. 

Also found in the Democratic Party platform is this sentence; Police brutality is a stain on the soul of our nation.  They do not deescalate this position.  They speak of police brutality as if it is the rule rather than the exception.  They believe we need to overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom.  Cunningham’s party ignores the millions of professional police contacts each year.  They ignore the stains violent offenders leave behind caution tape and inside chalk lines every hour in every day across America.  They claim the system has criminalized poverty, when it has not. 

Stealing is against the law whether you are rich or poor.  Armed robbery is against the law whether you are rich or poor.  Fraud and forgery are against the law whether you are rich or poor.  If Cunningham doesn’t support people living below the poverty line to be arrested for stealing, then he should introduce a bill that makes it legal for people living below the poverty line to steal.  This is essentially what California’s Prop 47 did.  It made it a misdemeanor for anything stolen with a value under $950.  The result was predictable – a spike in shoplifting because of the reduced penalties.  This is in the Democratic Party platform.  It must be assumed that Joe Cunningham supports this position until he says otherwise.

According to their platform, Democrats will establish strict national standards governing the use of force, including banning the use of chokeholds and carotid holds and permitting deadly force only when necessary and a last resort to prevent an imminent threat to life.  What they don’t mention is educating the public to avoid resisting arrest.  Even if being arrested mistakenly, resisting arrest is not going to make that bad experience any better.  In fact, you’ll likely end up with charges of resisting arrest once it is determined that you were not a party to the situation that caused you to be mistakenly handcuffed in the first place.  Sometimes the best way to win a tug-of-war is to drop the rope.  Cunningham has aligned himself with the party that believes that no matter how violent or abusive a suspect is while being placed under arrest, the police officers should remain as calm as Mayberry’s Sheriff Andy Taylor.

Law enforcement must be held accountable for crimes committed.  Choking a suspect to death is murder.  Using excessive force is assault.  Planting evidence and providing false testimony under oath is perjury and worse.  There are unfit men and women wearing police uniforms.  But to speak of police brutality as a stain on the soul of our nation, when it’s a droplet next to the criminal brutality that plaques some of our cities, is grossly unfair to the good cops that have to clean up horrific scenes of violence on a regular basis.  How South Carolina’s Joe Cunningham can be on the wrong side of the thin blue line is anyone’s guess.  If asked if he supports law enforcement, of course Cunningham will say what he knows his constituents want to hear.  But his party, the Democratic Party, has blurred that thin blue line that stands between peaceful society and violent chaos.  Just look at Portland.