EDITORIAL: Facts elusive for Democrats

To hear it from Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, as well as the mainstream media and the liberal left (two sectors that massively intersect on a Venn diagram), electing a Republican president on Nov. 8 would be akin to the nation contracting the Zika virus and Ebola at the same time.

But it becomes quite hard to accept the alarmism coming from Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Sanders when you see the tenuous grip both have on reality. Case in point: last Sunday’s debate in Flint, Mich.

Sen. Sanders made the following statement, related to discrimination and African American poverty: “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor.”

Excuse us? Let’s go to the tale of the tape here, from 2014 statistics, courtesy of PolitiFact: 26.2 percent of African Americans live in poverty, compared with 10.1 percent of whites. However, that 10.1 percent accounts for nearly 20 million people, compared with 10.8 million African Americans. All those numbers should greatly disturb all Americans, but whites surely know what it’s like to be poor.

Now, cue Mrs. Clinton, who while speaking about gun control stated unequivocally that the AR-15 is “an automatic weapon.” Except it’s not. It’s a fully legal semi-automatic, requiring the trigger to be pulled each time to fire the rifle.

Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Sanders put their ignorance on full display with their remarks, and honestly, it’s dogmatic ignorance — an article of blind faith. You could provide the facts on poverty, guns and more, and they’d still stand by their partisan talking points. That’s because they can’t run on facts, something the electorate should keep in mind in November.