Joe Lieberman’s death is a stark reminder of the insanity that has consumed his party.
The four-term senator from Connecticut and first-ever Jewish VP candidate was an honorable, reasonable man.
Over the course of his career, he showed he was unafraid to break with party orthodoxy.
He was the first national Dem to take then-President Bill Clinton to task publicly over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a risky move given the intense polarization around Clinton’s shenanigans and alleged perjury to obfuscate them.
And though he shared his party’s views on domestic issues like the environment and gay rights, he split with them on foreign policy — backing the Iraq War and remaining a staunch friend of Israel throughout his political life.
The split over Iraq effectively drove him out of the party: He lost a Senate primary to lefty Democrat Ned Lamont, now Connecticut’s governor, but then won in the general as in independent with bigtime bipartisan backing.
Lamont was an early example of a candidate backed by the party’s left fringe, which at the time could not flex the requisite muscle for victory.
Yet Lieberman’s exit was a sign of things to come.
In the nearly years since, that fringe has become the dominant power in national Democratic politics.
Open antisemites like Reps. Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman and Rashida Tlaib spray vitriol in public as their Squadmates cheer them on.
“Defenders of democracy” like Nancy Pelosi and Dan Goldman rip apart norms in their pursuit of political power.
The Democratic Party has become synonymous with racial grievance-mongers like Black Lives Matter.
With the climate fanaticism that demands zero emissions no matter the death toll.
With gender extremism that wants to see little kids shot up with cross-sex hormones, and tweens subjected to life-changing surgery to “cure” gender confusion.
With borders open to endless floods of illegal immigrants.
A Democratic Party with no room in it for Lieberman is an ugly, divisive and corrosive assemblage.
So you’ll be badly missed, Joe — by everyone who remembers a saner politics.