Blagojevich to Newsmax TV: I Don't Recognize Democratic Party

(Newsmax TV/"Spicer & Co.")

By Brian Trusdell | Tuesday, 18 August 2020 08:01 PM

Former Illinois Congressman and Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he didn’t see the Democratic Party he grew up in during the opening night of its presidential nominating convention Monday, saying it’s not a party that reflects the American middle class anymore.

“I was away for a long time sheltering in place for eight years,” Blagojevich told Newsmax TV. “And I learned a couple of things, like when that happened, the world keeps spinning around. They take you out of the world it doesn’t stop. And things change.

“And boy, I’ll tell you, I didn't recognize the Democratic Party I was once a member of,” he added on “Spicer & Co.”

The eight years Blagojevich referenced was his conviction on wire and mail fraud charges for soliciting bribes for the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he became president. His sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump earlier this year.

Blagojevich said what he witnessed Monday night illustrated to him that the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party has seized control and doesn’t represent what he remembered were the driving motivations.

“I still consider myself a Democrat, but the Democrats of the John F. Kennedy mold, not the Democrats of the Bernie Sanders mold,” he said. “The ideological soul of the party is now Bernie Sanders and socialism.

“That's not a Democratic Party I grew up in. That's not a Democratic Party that really represents the middle class and the vast majority of hard-working people who want to be able to have a chance to get ahead."

Monday night’s convention was capped by a keynote address by former first lady Michelle Obama, but also included an appearance by Sanders.

Calling himself a “Trumpocrat,” Blagojevich said socialism has never succeeded and called it "a philosophy of failure and a gospel of envy."

“The Republican Party is not the Republican Party that I knew when I left home eight years ago,” he said. “It’s very different. (Trump) is speaking to constituencies that I used to represent as a Democratic congressman and Democratic governor, working people.“

Poster Comment:

Blago was in prison for eight years. Lots of things have changed in that time span.