I've wondered: is it better to sit back and let our nation implode on silliness and infighting or try to help restore sanity. I don't know, but I keep doing the latter.
Seems they suffer from "extreme fealty". I think this is mostly about how the Dems decided to "wield their power" - and, yes, it does, indeed look like Socialists of the past century: "if you don't repeat our words and spread the agenda, your benefits will end (and when we're through with you, that'll happen anyway (have a look at it), but it'll take longer). You can have the hand-outs, if you carry our message. If not, we'll attack you, as we visibly demonstrate against Americans daily." Please, correct me if you think this is not how it is.
Democrats from slavery to today were never a real friend of Black Americans. They under Installed Joe, ushered in 21 million illegal replacements. Thats how much they care about Black Americans and they shoved it in their faces.
You mentioned the the Whigs and the Bull Moose Party. There was one party failure even earlier. The Federalist party, which started at the time the Constitution was ratified, fell apart after the War of 1812 ended. The Whigs broke up around 1850, after the Mexican War. Most of them ended up in the new Republican party, which officially formed in 1854. The Bull Moose party was only around for one election, and it was probably Teddy Roosevelt's biggest mistake--if he had sat down and shut up instead of fighting against William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson might not have won the election. TR split the Republicans and gave Wilson the Presidency .
I've been thinking for a while that the Dems could break up. They have drifted away from the blue-collar workers who were their base when I was growing up. And they have built a coalition of what you might call "out-groups" that don't even like each other. The Blacks don't like the Jews, who have been the party's bank account for years. The Hispanics look down on the Blacks. The Blacks never did like the gays and lesbians appropriating the slogans of the Civil Rights movement. And now the lesbians are getting fed up with the trannies. And the Muslims don't really like anybody who isn't Muslim (and don't necessarily like each other, according to what Muslim sect they are part of). I don't see how they can hold it together.
I almost didn't read any further than your first sentence: Will the Democratic Party soon cease to exist? I felt a sense of euphoria sweep over my body!Then I had to come back to reality, and think of what has been happening in that party for the last several years. The only "message" they have to their constituents is, hate Israel, love LGBTQIA+++, hate people that are not elitists like them, love an MS-13 human trafficking, wife beating gang member, hate anyone that stands in their way of absolute power, (after all THEY know what is best for us,") and above all else hate Trump. Especially after the last 4 years, if the die hards haven't awakened yet, they never will. You just gave me some hope.
Roger, as a Harvard grad whose great grandfather married a shiksa (so I'm not technically Jewish, even if grandma and two of my cousins could pass for Anne Frank in a police lineup), I recently got an email from classmates asking me to email my support for President Garber in his fight with Trump (and with existing Civil Rights law - not to mention the recent Supreme Court decision calling them on their anti-Asian and anti-Jewish racism). That was fun I sent him three, all in various ways to the effect that if Harvard wants to continue as an intellectually vapid left wing indoctrination mill, they are free to do so, as long as taxpayers don't have to pay for it. I ended the last one with "good luck with the endowment." There is no emoji for the middle finger. Oh. I also mentioned that he could replace the John Harvard statue with Mengele, to make the Palestinians happy (as far as I can see they have never recovered from Hitler's suicide).
I was a registered Democrat for 50 years until I moved to my present abode. Like you, Roger, and like Reagan, Trump and Musk, I did not leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me and all of us. Its present state is best described by William Butler Yeats.
"The best lack all conviction
While the worst are full of passionate intensity."
IMHO, the democrat party become the communist party, USA during the Clinton years. Using the best taught lessons of Saul Alinsky, they demonized political opposition, rather than debate. Using Marxist tactics, they began the undermining of the fabric of America with constant lying and embraced moral decadence as some sort of right and created out of whole cloth, new rights that most Americans reject. The behavior of the "democrats" is emblematic of Marxist and Saul Alinksy strategy to destroy the country as founded, make a mess of it and then claim to be the ones to fix it, only to make things worse.
yes. I watched this socialist, anti-Semitic take-over taking root in 1993. Among other issues that went on as the Berlin Wall had fallen, the Export Control issues with China were "over the top" and the warming with Russia, was chilled - going against the Reagan and Bush policies. Good for "unrest". "Don't ever let an emergency go to waste".
Please also add to this the 2006 anti-Semitic kick-off book, by Walt (Harvard) and Mearsheimer (U. Chicago): "The Israel Lobby". I think this was the beginning of what we see in "full bloom" today. (Mearshimer and Walt seen angry that the Israel lobby plays a better game than some others. Seems China might play that game best...but with one party only.)
I had always thought that the polarization, especially in Congress, had started with Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America. I guess I was still watching the network news then and believing the liberal version of events. Thanks Michael and David for correcting my misinformation!
shucks. I think George Washington understood this would happen as soon as two parties existed. If I read you right, I agree with this concept: it doesn't matter which party at which time, what matters are human behaviors at all times. Cheers.
I spoke with my 19-year-old son yesterday who is a college student in CA. He told me how incredibly pessimistic kids are these days regarding their prospects towards a prosperous future in the USA. I tried to offer some optimism but wasn't real convincing.
I have a grandson that feels the same way. I tell him to keep doing what he is doing, and that is to work for what he wants. Learn a marketable trade. The youth of today feel so entitled that they are led to believe that the government should take care of their every need. Healthcare, food, housing, etc. As I say to him, that only leads to Communism/ Marxism. Every parent needs to explain this to their children. as their "teachers and professors" from grade school through college never have. God help us.
I like to think of things in terms of outcomes, meaning what's been the outcome of the creation of political parties? Each one (at least in today's version of America) will cite (frequently inaccurately) their prior major political accomplishments that were done "for the people". Hilariously, legislation like the Civil Rights Act was passed with a ton of roadblocking or lack of support from Democrats, yet they repeatedly claim ownership of a landmark change that had much more support from Republicans than Democrats.
That's just an example, a more modern one might be Barry's Affordable Care Act, which was a) Not Affordable (unless you count pushing costs onto the people not receiving the care "affordable"), b) not "care" in any sense of the word, since access to health care is available to all (how it's paid for is another thing, but Medicaid isn't new), and c) it was an Act but only in the sense a political one. Costs went up, no new access "granted" by our overlords, and a novel ton of new regulatory compliance requirements were ladled upon hospitals and caregivers to no net physical care benefit.
As long has been noted, there was visceral opposition to the formation of parties or political factions, due to long experience by the Founding Fathers with history in England, France, Denmark, pick a current EU member, and stood as a primary reason for the founding. It doesn't take a lot of reading to understand just how intelligent and articulate Washington was; I feel like he's long been overlooked in this regard due to his martial experience. But his same warnings in this space, and his absolute need to feed and clothe his troops driving him to secure funding through any means to avoid the convolutions of a useless Congress, tell the same tale that seems so woven into our cultural and political fabric it's hard to imagine it being differently.
Which is the point. If representation at the local, county, state, and federal levels were possible without parties, what might that outcome look like? I suspect we'd see more true representation of the People vs. the aggrandizement of power in parties, which seems to be our only consistent and recurring outcome.
PhD here (pol sci) and because he's a conservative one, under-employed.
No, Roger, they aren't "over-educated." They may have overdone the number of near-automatic-B, impossible-to-fail college courses for credit, but few of them ever got the real deal, or, they got it 40-50 years ago, and failed to adjust the real lessons from their liberal education to current developments.
They are in the perilous zone of too-educated to be guided by a combination of church teachings and working-class smarts, but not educated enough to be guided by the wisdom of the ages. They got the sophist-ication, the cheap scientism perhaps, but never the real philosophic thing.
First question: Is the Democratic Party dead if it merely changes its name but transfers almost all of its loyalists to a party with a different name? By convention, I guess I'd say yes, but really if the old gang gets together under a new name, then the spirit of that same old party will live, albeit somewhat reconfigured.
And second question: Did not the Democratic Party accumulate so much dominance over the last century that its leaders began to believe it was unaccountable? And isn't that the cause of its current malaise?
Third question: Is the surviving and supposedly victorious GOP the same party that it was 20 years ago? Pretty sure the answer to that is no.
It is all yin and yang. Still a two-party system that still, thankfully, answers mostly to the same Constitution (that is still the best constitution yet devised). If ever we have a revolution, I like to think it will end not in the replacement of our Constitution, but in its restoration.
Thanks as always for your thoughtful commentary and including the links to Hayem Solomon and George Washington. Always continuous learners, we (me and my spouse) recently listened to the Lanier Library Series, an interesting panel discussion on "Problems understanding Paul"--The panel included "two gentile scholars and two messianic jewish scholars." We learned more about the times that Paul lived in and the possible conditions that led to the emergence of "christianity" than we understood before. Here's the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGIHH2pAuzI
Much more at their website to explore of course, but thanks for your attempts at bringing some understanding to our crazy contemporary times. We are indeed "In the Churn"-
When you think about it most governance today makes no, or very little sense.
George had it right they're after power, politicians thinking of the next election and filling their pockets rather than statesmen thinking of the next generation and serving their constituents.
George, et al had it right, unpaid citizen legislators, no career politicians that vote to set their own wages, benefits and slush funds.
If the uniparty, the democrat/RINO party does not cease to exist, the Republic will.
Bravo Roger Simon. How could we get your ideas in front of the Center Left suffering from mild and curable TDS?
Thinking of Atlas Shrugged. Get Donald Trump and Elon Musk to resign and leave problems to the Democrats:
Wars end - Check?
USA bankrupted. - Check?
Illegal aliens stay in country - Check?
Even more illegals - Check?
Indoctrination into gender swapping - Check?
Democracy saved? Check?
Roger, I am feeling battered by stories of increasing resistance to efforts to fix these existential problems.
You make things better.
Keep up the good work.
I've wondered: is it better to sit back and let our nation implode on silliness and infighting or try to help restore sanity. I don't know, but I keep doing the latter.
Perhaps a better name for the party of Jefferson today is the Marxist/Democrat/Hate America Party. Because that is what it is in reality.
Seems they suffer from "extreme fealty". I think this is mostly about how the Dems decided to "wield their power" - and, yes, it does, indeed look like Socialists of the past century: "if you don't repeat our words and spread the agenda, your benefits will end (and when we're through with you, that'll happen anyway (have a look at it), but it'll take longer). You can have the hand-outs, if you carry our message. If not, we'll attack you, as we visibly demonstrate against Americans daily." Please, correct me if you think this is not how it is.
Democrats from slavery to today were never a real friend of Black Americans. They under Installed Joe, ushered in 21 million illegal replacements. Thats how much they care about Black Americans and they shoved it in their faces.
What a lovely Political Party!
Sadly, exactly.
You mentioned the the Whigs and the Bull Moose Party. There was one party failure even earlier. The Federalist party, which started at the time the Constitution was ratified, fell apart after the War of 1812 ended. The Whigs broke up around 1850, after the Mexican War. Most of them ended up in the new Republican party, which officially formed in 1854. The Bull Moose party was only around for one election, and it was probably Teddy Roosevelt's biggest mistake--if he had sat down and shut up instead of fighting against William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson might not have won the election. TR split the Republicans and gave Wilson the Presidency .
I've been thinking for a while that the Dems could break up. They have drifted away from the blue-collar workers who were their base when I was growing up. And they have built a coalition of what you might call "out-groups" that don't even like each other. The Blacks don't like the Jews, who have been the party's bank account for years. The Hispanics look down on the Blacks. The Blacks never did like the gays and lesbians appropriating the slogans of the Civil Rights movement. And now the lesbians are getting fed up with the trannies. And the Muslims don't really like anybody who isn't Muslim (and don't necessarily like each other, according to what Muslim sect they are part of). I don't see how they can hold it together.
They lost their Kumbaya.
I almost didn't read any further than your first sentence: Will the Democratic Party soon cease to exist? I felt a sense of euphoria sweep over my body!Then I had to come back to reality, and think of what has been happening in that party for the last several years. The only "message" they have to their constituents is, hate Israel, love LGBTQIA+++, hate people that are not elitists like them, love an MS-13 human trafficking, wife beating gang member, hate anyone that stands in their way of absolute power, (after all THEY know what is best for us,") and above all else hate Trump. Especially after the last 4 years, if the die hards haven't awakened yet, they never will. You just gave me some hope.
Roger, as a Harvard grad whose great grandfather married a shiksa (so I'm not technically Jewish, even if grandma and two of my cousins could pass for Anne Frank in a police lineup), I recently got an email from classmates asking me to email my support for President Garber in his fight with Trump (and with existing Civil Rights law - not to mention the recent Supreme Court decision calling them on their anti-Asian and anti-Jewish racism). That was fun I sent him three, all in various ways to the effect that if Harvard wants to continue as an intellectually vapid left wing indoctrination mill, they are free to do so, as long as taxpayers don't have to pay for it. I ended the last one with "good luck with the endowment." There is no emoji for the middle finger. Oh. I also mentioned that he could replace the John Harvard statue with Mengele, to make the Palestinians happy (as far as I can see they have never recovered from Hitler's suicide).
Keep up the good work!
I was a registered Democrat for 50 years until I moved to my present abode. Like you, Roger, and like Reagan, Trump and Musk, I did not leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me and all of us. Its present state is best described by William Butler Yeats.
"The best lack all conviction
While the worst are full of passionate intensity."
IMHO, the democrat party become the communist party, USA during the Clinton years. Using the best taught lessons of Saul Alinsky, they demonized political opposition, rather than debate. Using Marxist tactics, they began the undermining of the fabric of America with constant lying and embraced moral decadence as some sort of right and created out of whole cloth, new rights that most Americans reject. The behavior of the "democrats" is emblematic of Marxist and Saul Alinksy strategy to destroy the country as founded, make a mess of it and then claim to be the ones to fix it, only to make things worse.
yes. I watched this socialist, anti-Semitic take-over taking root in 1993. Among other issues that went on as the Berlin Wall had fallen, the Export Control issues with China were "over the top" and the warming with Russia, was chilled - going against the Reagan and Bush policies. Good for "unrest". "Don't ever let an emergency go to waste".
Please also add to this the 2006 anti-Semitic kick-off book, by Walt (Harvard) and Mearsheimer (U. Chicago): "The Israel Lobby". I think this was the beginning of what we see in "full bloom" today. (Mearshimer and Walt seen angry that the Israel lobby plays a better game than some others. Seems China might play that game best...but with one party only.)
I had always thought that the polarization, especially in Congress, had started with Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America. I guess I was still watching the network news then and believing the liberal version of events. Thanks Michael and David for correcting my misinformation!
shucks. I think George Washington understood this would happen as soon as two parties existed. If I read you right, I agree with this concept: it doesn't matter which party at which time, what matters are human behaviors at all times. Cheers.
Youth today think of George as a slave holding criminal. Sad.
I spoke with my 19-year-old son yesterday who is a college student in CA. He told me how incredibly pessimistic kids are these days regarding their prospects towards a prosperous future in the USA. I tried to offer some optimism but wasn't real convincing.
I have a grandson that feels the same way. I tell him to keep doing what he is doing, and that is to work for what he wants. Learn a marketable trade. The youth of today feel so entitled that they are led to believe that the government should take care of their every need. Healthcare, food, housing, etc. As I say to him, that only leads to Communism/ Marxism. Every parent needs to explain this to their children. as their "teachers and professors" from grade school through college never have. God help us.
Great post, Roger.
I like to think of things in terms of outcomes, meaning what's been the outcome of the creation of political parties? Each one (at least in today's version of America) will cite (frequently inaccurately) their prior major political accomplishments that were done "for the people". Hilariously, legislation like the Civil Rights Act was passed with a ton of roadblocking or lack of support from Democrats, yet they repeatedly claim ownership of a landmark change that had much more support from Republicans than Democrats.
That's just an example, a more modern one might be Barry's Affordable Care Act, which was a) Not Affordable (unless you count pushing costs onto the people not receiving the care "affordable"), b) not "care" in any sense of the word, since access to health care is available to all (how it's paid for is another thing, but Medicaid isn't new), and c) it was an Act but only in the sense a political one. Costs went up, no new access "granted" by our overlords, and a novel ton of new regulatory compliance requirements were ladled upon hospitals and caregivers to no net physical care benefit.
As long has been noted, there was visceral opposition to the formation of parties or political factions, due to long experience by the Founding Fathers with history in England, France, Denmark, pick a current EU member, and stood as a primary reason for the founding. It doesn't take a lot of reading to understand just how intelligent and articulate Washington was; I feel like he's long been overlooked in this regard due to his martial experience. But his same warnings in this space, and his absolute need to feed and clothe his troops driving him to secure funding through any means to avoid the convolutions of a useless Congress, tell the same tale that seems so woven into our cultural and political fabric it's hard to imagine it being differently.
Which is the point. If representation at the local, county, state, and federal levels were possible without parties, what might that outcome look like? I suspect we'd see more true representation of the People vs. the aggrandizement of power in parties, which seems to be our only consistent and recurring outcome.
Until Trump 2.0. Maybe.
I always laughed at the name of one of the political parties of the 1860s... THE KNOW NOTHINGS... Maybe the Dems could adopt that name
.
The important part of this article was the reminder about Salomon…
PhD here (pol sci) and because he's a conservative one, under-employed.
No, Roger, they aren't "over-educated." They may have overdone the number of near-automatic-B, impossible-to-fail college courses for credit, but few of them ever got the real deal, or, they got it 40-50 years ago, and failed to adjust the real lessons from their liberal education to current developments.
They are in the perilous zone of too-educated to be guided by a combination of church teachings and working-class smarts, but not educated enough to be guided by the wisdom of the ages. They got the sophist-ication, the cheap scientism perhaps, but never the real philosophic thing.
Another winner, Roger! I didn't know that GW preferred no parties! Interesting!
First question: Is the Democratic Party dead if it merely changes its name but transfers almost all of its loyalists to a party with a different name? By convention, I guess I'd say yes, but really if the old gang gets together under a new name, then the spirit of that same old party will live, albeit somewhat reconfigured.
And second question: Did not the Democratic Party accumulate so much dominance over the last century that its leaders began to believe it was unaccountable? And isn't that the cause of its current malaise?
Third question: Is the surviving and supposedly victorious GOP the same party that it was 20 years ago? Pretty sure the answer to that is no.
It is all yin and yang. Still a two-party system that still, thankfully, answers mostly to the same Constitution (that is still the best constitution yet devised). If ever we have a revolution, I like to think it will end not in the replacement of our Constitution, but in its restoration.
Thanks as always for your thoughtful commentary and including the links to Hayem Solomon and George Washington. Always continuous learners, we (me and my spouse) recently listened to the Lanier Library Series, an interesting panel discussion on "Problems understanding Paul"--The panel included "two gentile scholars and two messianic jewish scholars." We learned more about the times that Paul lived in and the possible conditions that led to the emergence of "christianity" than we understood before. Here's the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGIHH2pAuzI
Much more at their website to explore of course, but thanks for your attempts at bringing some understanding to our crazy contemporary times. We are indeed "In the Churn"-
Good essay, it doesn't make sense.
When you think about it most governance today makes no, or very little sense.
George had it right they're after power, politicians thinking of the next election and filling their pockets rather than statesmen thinking of the next generation and serving their constituents.
George, et al had it right, unpaid citizen legislators, no career politicians that vote to set their own wages, benefits and slush funds.
If the uniparty, the democrat/RINO party does not cease to exist, the Republic will.