Maxine Waters: The Left's Best Against Donald Trump?


Ken Blackwell is Senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at Family Research Council. This article appeared in Huffington Post on May 29, 2017.


Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Ca.) says there is something “tragically wrong” with President Donald Trump. His advisers and friends are “a bunch of scumbags.” He is creating “chaos and division.”

But “we can’t wait” for the next election since “He will have destroyed the country by then.” So he must be impeached. Now.

Of course Rep. Waters believes something is wrong with President Trump. He’s a Republican. Actually, what she said about him is tame compared to what she said about then-House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: “These are demons” who are “destroying this country.”

Of course, anyone concerned about the country should remember the mess President Barack Obama left when he exited the Oval Office in January. And despite the flurry of baseless charges and empty claims, there’s no evidence that President Trump has abused his position—unlike Rep. Waters.

She is a career politician who was elected to California’s State Assembly back when Gerald Ford was president. She spent 14 years doing her best to tarnish the Golden State—and, sadly, succeeded. In 1990 voters decided to send her to Washington, inflicting her on the rest of us.

One of her notable early achievements was getting suspended after repeatedly interrupting a Republican congressman who asked tough questions of the Clinton administration about the Whitewater scandal. The presiding Democrat—it was before the Gingrich Revolution—called her actions “unruly and turbulent.” She later sought to punish the Los Angeles Times and television station it owned for their news coverage: apparently she missed the memo about supporting freedom of the press.

Like most left-wing lawmakers, she believes taxpayers exist to fund her political fantasies. That’s why big labor and trial attorneys are among her most fervent supporters.

Back in 2009 she pushed an earmark for a school training center named after her. Even fellow Democrat David Obey opposed the grant; she was cited as “Porker of the Month” by Citizens Against Government Waste in June 2009.

In 2004 the Los Angeles Times found that she had helped her relatives collect more than a million dollars through her support for different companies and campaigns. Since 2006 her daughter collected around $750,000 from payments by Democratic politicians for inclusion in Waters’ “slate mailer” by the Citizens for Waters campaign committee. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington regularly put her on its list of corrupt members of Congress.

Her membership on the House Financial Services Committee, on which she now is the top Democrat, also gave her another opportunity for self-dealing. In 2008 she helped arrange a meeting between federal banking regulators and representatives of OneUnited Bank to request a bail-out. Her husband happened to be a major shareholder in the institution.

After Waters told the committee chairman that she would halt her efforts, her chief of staff (and grandson!) made further “outreach.” The bank eventually collected $12 million in federal funds. She escaped censure from the Democratically-controlled House Ethics Committee, but the left-wing group Public Citizen criticized her misuse of family and business ties.

Waters’ policy positions are what one would expect. Lots of spending. But against a strong military. Opposed to welfare reform. Once threatened to nationalize the nation’s oil industry. Opposition to anti-terrorism legislation. Resistance to even slowing illegal immigration. For late-term abortion, and at taxpayer expense.

She proved to be a fan of Fidel Castro, who, she celebrated, stood ready to help those fleeing “political persecution.” She also liked Haiti’s Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the radical left-wing priest who praised the practice of “necklacing” opponents—lighting a gasoline filled tire around their necks.

And Waters claims there is something wrong with Donald Trump!

It was inevitable that the president would face strong opposition. But you’d think the Democrats could come up with a better critic than Maxine Waters. Divisive, self-serving, and crazy left, she represents liberal elites, not the public interest.

She’s scared of waiting for the next election because she figures her side can’t win. Last year Donald Trump defeated Waters’ preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. He’s likely to defeat whoever the Democrats put up in 2020. The real political demons are the liberals who have done so much harm to American liberty and security.