PrintSeptember 16, 2010
Can Democrats Save Their Party?
It is time to make an honest assessment. Democrat voters who are not down with the whole radical Socialist thing need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves if their party of choice still truly represents them.
Though they may instinctively interpret this message as critical, it is intended as a rallying cry for some of my fellow countrymen. There are fine, upstanding, productive citizens among Democratic ranks. As most of us do, I count a number of them among my friends and family members.
Though few are willing to acknowledge it, I sense that they want nothing to do with the loss of freedom and prosperity that comes hand in hand with the radicalism coming out of today's Democratic Party.
Don't get me wrong -- as a staunch conservative, I maintain that support for the Democratic Party is a non-starter, but the realities of our two-party system necessarily dictate that we all have some interest in the matter. The truth is we need two healthy, honest, and competent political parties working in the best interests of America.
The health of the Democratic Party requires a cleansing. It will depend on a rejection of much of what it currently stands for, and particularly the means by which it achieves its objectives. The sooner Democrats get on with it, the sooner we'll all be better off -- particularly them.
Here's a news flash: those of us on the right have been there and done that. Contrary to popular belief, the tsunami of discontent which has come to be known as the "Tea Party" movement is largely a product of this exercise.
We were disenchanted with government at large, Republicans as well as Democrats, before Mr. Obama happened along. Either mistakenly thinking he had a mandate for his radical transformation of America or perhaps determined to implement it anyway, Obama immediately upped the ante, walking right into a buzz-saw of public opinion, thus propelling the people's rebellion into orbit.
Plenty of Americans were duped by the "hope and change" message, but nobody more so than run-of-the-mill Democrats. To be sure, Democratic candidates running campaigns which are largely cloaked in "moderate" terms is nothing new, but few ever imagined how far afield Obama and company would stray from reasonable governance.
Besides opposing Washington's intrusive agenda and the crushing debt it is amassing, an increasing number of Americans feel outright betrayed by their government, particularly at the federal level. Witness the massive number of independent voters who, after rejecting the GOP in 2006 and 2008, have shifted to the right.
It is no wonder. After Obama has been in the White House for twenty months and Democrats in control of Congress for the past four years, unable to genuinely defend their policies or their lackluster performance, party hard-liners persist in pointing the finger of blame.
It's outrageous enough to continue blaming G.W. Bush for everything that goes wrong, but Democratic leaders, including Obama, have not stopped there. They have made vilifying people their stock and trade.
Hurling mindless invective at decent citizens who merely oppose you has taken a considerable toll on the party. The political problem with portraying a demon around every corner is that you eventually end up offending huge swaths of the nation's populace.
The whole façade has come crashing down. Hardcore Democratic leaders and their supporters know they are at odds with the mood of the country. Their increasingly nasty and childish behavior speaks volumes.
At long last, the mask is off. No doubt, the era of Obama has created an unprecedented backlash in the present, but it has done more than that: it has fully exposed the extreme left's political agenda once and for all.
The left's dramatic overreaching will prove to be a long-term game-changer. It is unlikely that the electorate will soon again be as apathetic, uninformed, and disengaged as they have been in recent decades. The trend could serve to haunt the Democratic Party for years to come.
The intoxication of seemingly absolute power, of strictly one-party rule, may have been a thrilling high in the short-term, but the hangover will be proportionately painful. A monumental backlash has Democrats standing on the precipice of an electoral disaster of epic proportions. Without serious reform, they could be relegated to a minority status that could take decades to overcome.
The party has been hijacked by a collection of radicals including avowed Socialists, Marxists, anarchists, Mao-worshipers, and fans of Castro and Chávez -- all of whom have been provided a seat at the table by the current regime in Washington.
The rejection of these extremists is an American thing more than it is a Republican-versus-Democrat thing. This is the ongoing struggle of freedom versus tyranny at work, a clash between citizens and a government which seeks to increasingly control them.
Democrats have paid a tremendous price to achieve electoral victory. Unfortunately, so has much of the nation. Having welcomed into their tent an endless array of radicals and malcontents who represent every failed ideology and kooky leftist cause under the sun, the party is now discovering that the collective weight is practically unbearable.
The results are horrifying. Look around our nation at the unending urban blight in cities like Detroit, or the potential bankruptcy facing states like California, New York, and Illinois.
Look at the failed public school systems and the denial of concerned parents' choice over how and where their child is educated.
Consider the stripping of our morality that the party endorses -- the horror of taking 1.8 million unborn lives a year and the emotional scars that come along with them, young teens being spirited away by school officials to have an abortion without the consent of their parents, a system of indoctrination that wants to introduce your grade-schooler to homosexuality.
Now Democrats find themselves in league with those who believe that we have no right to our borders, that America, your state, and even you have no right to sovereignty at all. Of course, we are obligated to provide services for all the resulting illegal aliens even though our infrastructure is being stressed to the point of breaking.
The party's border policies result in rampant crime, sedition, and terrorism in the forms of Central American gangs, foreign nationals, Mexican drug cartels, and Islamic fanatics. By assuaging the demands of the Muslim political community, Shariah Law is being openly practiced in pockets of America, and we are under constant threat of attack on our own soil.
In the streets, Democrats are increasingly supported by a host of nefarious characters including criminal enterprises such as ACORN, union thugs who physically assault the weak and elderly among us, and a wide assortment of vandals who delight in destroying public property.
If all of this suits the average registered Democrat, by all means, they have the right to keep electing the same kind of leaders. Otherwise, there is much work to be done. To start, they would be well-served to consider whether or not they can continue to afford Mr. Obama.
George Scaggs is a writer, commentator, voice actor, and audio-video producer. You can find his work at Bargain Citizen Media, Ramparts360.com, and TexasInsider.com.
