Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., told Newsmax on Tuesday the Democratic Party "is changing" and turning into an "extreme," "socialist" party that "doesn't represent the average American."
Former Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced last week that she was leaving the party, blasting it as "an elitist cabal" driven by "cowardly wokeness" and trading in "anti-white racism," according to the New York Post.
A fellow ex-Democrat, Van Drew said he left the party in 2019 for similar reasons.
"This is not your grandfather or father's Democratic Party," the New Jersey Democrat-turned-Republican said during an appearance on Newsmax's "American Agenda." "This is a whole new thing that wants to change the entire fabric of America and thinks that America is the same as any other country in Europe."
"[It] does not want to see us be No. 1, does not want to see us be strong, does not want to see us to be always the nation that was the beacon, literally, for the entire world," the Garden State representative continued. "That's problematic, and that's something I don't want to have any part of. I believe in a strong America, and I believe America is No. 1."
Turning to the issue of green energy, Van Drew said he is opposed to a wind project off the coast of South Jersey because of all the negative impacts it will have on the state.
"This is really being done without proper protocol, without really looking into what it's going to do to our fishing industry, what it's going to do to our tourism industry, what it's going to do to the environment," the congressman said. "Supposedly Democrats are big environmentalists and love the environment, yet this is a real problem for the environment and what it's going to do to the floor of the ocean."
"I wouldn't mind a pilot program to see how they would work in a certain spot," he continued. "This is right off the get-go, over 100. Hundreds of thousands of acres covered in wind turbines — wind turbines that are 1,000 ft. tall. To give you some sense of the height of that, if you look at Lady Liberty, it's only 305 ft. So this is over three times the height of the Statue of Liberty, and that's without the blades included in that height."
Van Drew also suggested it would be better to employ a multi-pronged energy strategy than to prohibit any one source because it isn't "green" enough.
"Europe did this already," Van Drew said. "It failed. Now they're burning coal and anything they can get their hands on."
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