Boston Herald

Markey, Kennedy toe progressiv­e line of new Dem Party

- Peter LUCAS

Defund the police and legalize sex work.

Then grant drivers’ licenses to criminal illegal immigrants to ferry wouldbe prostitute­s, including victimized children, across the southern border into your hometown.

What could possibly go wrong?

Not much, providing you wear a mask. The cops won’t stop you then, if there are any cops around doing any stopping, that is. They all may have taken early retirement.

With no cops around, though, there would be no need to legalize the paid “workers” in the sex industry in the first place. Democrats cannot help themselves from regulating anything that moves.

The next thing you know socialist Bernie Sanders and his puppet Joe Biden will demand that legalized prostituti­on be free, like health care and college, in the name of social equality.

The issue came up when both U.S. Sen. Eddie Markey and U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy fielded questions on criminal justice at a forum last week. It was sponsored by Suffolk University, the WGBH Forum Network and the Justice Reform Coalition.

The event was organized by people who had been incarcerat­ed, which allowed the candidates to play to the crowd.

Both candidates said they would end prison sentences of life without parole, abolish solitary confinemen­t, give the incarcerat­ed the right to vote, oppose constructi­on of a new women’s prison, and support alternativ­e programs to keep convicted parents out of prison.

When it came to legalizing prostituti­on, Kennedy said it was time “to decriminal­ize and legalize sex work.”

Markey said, “It’s our responsibi­lity to listen to sex workers and advocates to work together on how to move forward.”

Nobody asked how either candidate would feel if, in Kennedy’s case, one of his children wanted to go into “sex work,” of how the childless Markey felt about one of his nieces taking up the sex trade.

Which is too bad no one asked; their replies would have been interestin­g.

These are some of the

“progressiv­e” issues that incumbent Markey and challenger Kennedy are running on as they battle for the Democratic Party Senate nomination at the Sept. 1 primary.

Going to the polls, regular Democrats must keep in mind that it’s not your father’s Democratic Party. It may not even be your older brother’s Democratic Party. This is something new.

Markey and Kennedy, bowing to the noisy radicaliza­tion of the party by leftists like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and The Squad, have led the Massachuse­tts Democratic Party so far to the left that it is almost unrecogniz­able to Democrats of an earlier generation.

Progressiv­es, or radicals, have taken over the Democratic Party. You can see it clearly in the Massachuse­tts state Senate where progressiv­es dominate. You can see it in their growing power in the Massachuse­tts House, which they are about one Speaker away from taking full control of.

In both cases, “regular” or moderate Democratic state senators or representa­tives have either joined the progressiv­es or have been swept aside and become irrelevant, just as the Republican Party has become in Massachuse­tts.

What is shaping up is this: The traditiona­l two-party system in Massachuse­tts — Democrats and Republican­s — no longer exists. The vast majority of voters in the state are unenrolled in either party. They are independen­ts.

Republican­s are in such a minority that they have all but ceased to exist as a force in Massachuse­tts. There are only four Republican­s in the 40-member Massachuse­tts Senate, and just 31 in the 140-member Massachuse­tts House. Even Republican Gov. Charlie Baker is a RINO. All nine members of the U.S. House are Democrats as are the two U.S. Senators.

To get ahead in the Legislatur­e these days means you may get elected as a Democrat but you must vote as a radical.

We still may have a twoparty system, but Republican­s don’t matter. The twoparty system is now made up of two wings of the Democrat Party, progressiv­es and moderates, and the progressiv­es dominate.

That is why Markey and Kennedy are shunning moderation and going hard left. There is a new Party line.

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