The Spectator Editor Ben Domenech has praised what he sees as the turn toward “moderation” in the election of George Latimer in the Democratic primary that took place in the Bronx and New York’s adjoining Westchester County in late June. Domenech seems enthusiastic about the electoral victory of the Westchester County Democratic Executive who defeated the pro-Hamas black incumbent Jamaal Bowman; Domenech and The New York Times can agree that Latimer is a “centrist.”

Moreover, Domenech views this “return to normalcy” as part of a process by which moderates are reclaiming power in both national parties. While Latimer was winning in New York State, centrist Republicans were acing congressional primaries in Utah and Colorado. Domenech’s enthusiasm was echoed by that perennially moderate Fox News Republican Brit Hume, who seems to be hoping that our politicians “show civility” once again. Supposedly the violators of this rule are The Squad on the left and noisy populists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert on the right.

These opinions border on the truly moronic. The primary victory in New York went to a politician who was flush with money from Israel’s lobbying arm, AIPAC, but is certainly no “centrist,” unless Nancy Pelosi is the one who determines that center. Latimer is as far to the left as the black opponent he defeated, whether the issue is “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” late-term abortion, or trampling on the Second Amendment. Although Latimer is more emphatically on the Israeli side and speaks in a more dignified tone than Bowman, he is hardly any kind of conservative.

I strongly doubt the right will derive any benefit from having Bowman replaced by Latimer, except that Latimer may be less likely than Bowman to pull fire alarms in the Capitol to prevent congressional votes that don’t please him.

It is even less likely that the right will benefit by having Romney-like congressmen in districts that should be offering us more serious resistance against the left. Will the election of Republican moderates render Democratic congressmen or administrators less interested in payrolling the LGBT cause? Will these “moderates” keep the Democrats from voting for a national pro-choice law that makes the availability of late-term abortion mandatory in every state? Will the Republican moderates keep the Democrats from supporting a national election law that puts Democratic administrators in charge of all federal elections and prohibits voter identification? My obvious answer to all these rhetorical questions is “No!”

The secret is the Dems don’t have moderates. They march in lockstep and follow orders from the top. Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney, former governors Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, and that fastidiously politically correct governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, are Republican peculiarities, the type of deviationists who are far rarer in the other party. Those congressional Democrats who occasionally go their own way will always vote with their party on social issues and back their party’s nominees for cabinet positions and the federal bench. How many congressional Democrats voted to impeach Trump twice, in one case for a phone call to the Ukrainian head of state, which was in no way an impeachable offense? Democrats march in lockstep and will go on doing that, even if the resistance on the other side goes soft. 

By going soft, we don’t mean giving up on an aggressively interventionist foreign policy, which these advocates of “common ground” and The Wall Street Journal editorial board clearly favor. Going soft also doesn’t refer to the reduction of corporate tax rates, which the “moderates,” who are flush with corporate contributions, most emphatically want. It’s just the stuff that interests the social and cultural right that our “centrist” Republicans don’t want pushed too hard. Of course, on the other side, “centrists” like George Latimer can go on doing what they’ve always done: backing whatever the Democratic Party wants.

—Paul Gottfried