As I was growing up, I didn’t really see a great deal of difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. I was a Republican because my parents had “liked Ike,” much to the dismay of my Democratic grandmother, and because I felt no real reason to change may party affiliation as I grew old enough to vote. I voted for the candidate, I reasoned, not for the party.
Though I was only in high school at the time, I grieved over the assassination of President John Kennedy and I supported President Lyndon Johnson during the turmoil of the Vietnam War because of my fierce and perhaps naive belief that we should always support our president. I voted for Jimmy Carter for his first term, but switched to Ronald Reagan after Carter’s ineffectual leadership. I never liked Bill Clinton, because he reminded me of a used car salesman, smooth talking but not quite telling you the true story, and my assessment of his character was vindicated by his actions while in the White House. I voted for Barack Obama the first time he ran, because I saw in him the hope of bringing together for all time the black and white communities of our nation. And I voted against him in 2012 after I saw him simply divide the nation even more with his constant rush to blame the white man in any white/black controversy and with his administration’s constant mantra of “racist” applied to anyone who dared object to his policies.
But since 2008 when that young, black, hope for a new understanding between the races ran for president, things have turned ugly, really ugly. And the ugliness, unfortunately, has been primarily on the side of the left and the Democratic Party. The party that once championed freedom of speech has now changed their mantra to “freedom of our speech, not anyone else’s.” They use paid protestors and member of Antifa (a supposed Anti-fascist group of thugs whose very actions are fascist in the extreme) to suppress free speech on campuses, to harass Republican Senators as they eat in restaurants. Leftist mobs park outside of Republicans’ homes and chant sometimes vile words, disrupting their lives and the lives of their neighbors. A Democrat opened fire on a group of congressmen practicing for a baseball game, seriously wounding Steve Scalise and wounding several others, including Scalise’s security guards. Had Scalise and his guards not been present, the shooter would have wounded and killed Republican congressmen until he ran out of bullets. Another Democrat physically attacked Sen. Rand Paul as he was innocently getting off his lawn mower, sending him to the hospital with five broken ribs and bruised lungs which resulted in repeated bouts of pneumonia before his final recovery. Countless other Republicans have received death threats. Someone recently attempted to send envelopes filled with ricin, a deadly powder, to President Trump and key Pentagon Officials. Luckily all envelopes were intercepted and the perpetrator had failed to correctly manufacture the ricin so the contents were not actually deadly, though not for want of trying. Democratic leaders have not protested against the violence and threats. Instead, Representative Maxine Waters openly called for more harassment, claiming that those who disagree with their views should not have a peaceable moment anywhere, not in public, not in their homes.
Once Justice Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, the Democratic leadership immediately announced they would oppose any nominee that President Trump put forward. That was not unexpected, though it was not in keeping with Senate tradition. In the past, it has been understood that one prerogative of winning the White House was the ability to choose and have confirmed Justices to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court. President Obama saw both Sotomayor and Kagan confirmed with some Republican support and no protests and screaming, even though it was known that they were extremely liberal in their views. In the last months of Obama’s presidency, Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch conservative, died suddenly, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring Obama’s choice, Merrick Garland, before the Senate for consideration. Though this has become a Democratic arguing point, it needs to be pointed out that McConnell was simply following precedent set by Democratic Sen. Joe Biden in 1992 and repeated in 2007 by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, stating that no Supreme Court vacancy should be filled in the year of a presidential election.
The battle over the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court has been a study in childish antics by the Democrats. They viewed over half a million pages of documents on Kavanaugh’s court decisions and yet demanded more (even though everyone knew they wouldn’t bother reading them since they had already announced they would vote “no.”). Then the Democratic Senators signed passes to allow paid agitators to enter the gallery during the confirmation hearings to simply scream and shout in order to disrupt the proceedings. And, as those agitators were forced to leave by Capitol police, the Democratic Senators themselves abandoned all tradition of decorum in the proceedings and interrupted both Kavanaugh and their Republican counterparts over and over, more than thirty times on the first day alone.
Finally, when it became obvious that the Judge would be confirmed, Sen. Dianne Feinstein brought out a letter accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault 36 years ago when he was 17, a letter that she had had in her possession since July. As we all know, Democratic Senators and Representatives, Hollywood stars, and the mainstream media immediately cried that the very accusation, unsubstantiated though it were, was enough to make Kavanaugh ineligible to sit upon the high court. By their argument, every presumption of innocence in any crime, even in the workplace or classroom would go out the window. If you were accused of stealing from your company, taking your friend’s lunch money at school, the very accusation would be proof of your guilt! That reasoning is contrary to every principle of fairness upon which this country has been founded. That is fascism where only the party elite are right and if you dare to disagree with them in any way, you will be destroyed.
Democrats then began searching through everyone who had gone to college with Kavanaugh until they found two other accusers. None of the three stories stood up to investigation by the Senate and one was so ludicrous that even the liberal New York Times refused to print the story. Still the Democrats demanded an FBI investigation which only turned up no new facts except the fact that one accuser’s lawyers had tried to tamper with a witness. No corroboration of any of the charges exists. Instead, individuals came forward to cast even more doubt on the credibility of the stories during the FBI investigation, and yet the Democratic line remained: “You must believe the woman (but not the women who have accused Democrat Keith Ellison)! If she says he is a would be rapist or a gang rapist, then it must be so. Proof is unnecessary.”
If you are not one of the crazy Democrats, you know all of this is a bunch of nonsense. If you are a woman, you don’t worry about being believed so much as you worry about your husband, your son, your brother NOT being believed. You don’t think people should be silenced because they disagree with your political beliefs. You don’t like the mobs that physically attack Republicans or run them out of restaurants. You think that behavior is horrible. You would like to see both sides of the aisle in Congress work together for the good of the nation as they used to. But that is not going to happen. Not the way things are now. Not as long as the left feels they can intimidate people into behaving as they want then to.
Ironically, as the Democratic Party moves farther to the left, they are embracing Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s call for universal healthcare, Medicare for all. Yet, a recent Gallup poll showed that about 60% of Americans don’t want universal healthcare. They are content with what they have. Obviously, the Democratic Party does not speak for the majority of Americans, nor do they seem to care that they do not. Still, many people who disagree with their tactics in the past two years and who don’t want the things that they will run on in the upcoming elections, will still vote Democratic just because they always have.
A young gay man posted a video on YouTube explaining why he, a lifetime Democrat, had finally realized that he didn’t have to be a Democrat. The Republican Party welcomes all comers, despite what Democrats tell you, and we are made up of Hispanics, whites, Asians, native Americans, blacks, and gays. We want everyone to prosper, as more and more are under the policies of President Trump. So this young man, having come to that truth, began a movement called #WalkAway which has seen nearly two hundred thousand Democrats post videos explaining why they also are leaving the Democratic Party. There are countless others out there who are doing the same thing, though not sharing their #WalkAway on YouTube. They have realized what I hope that all of you will soon realize. You cannot disagree with a political party’s behavior and still continue to put then into office. You cannot disagree with the way they are acting and remain a Democrat. To do so gives your tacit approval to all of the vile and insane things that Hollywood Democrats and Democratic Congressmen say and do. Some of their dirt will rub off on you. People who do not know you personally will see you as just another Democratic hater. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin said it best over two hundred years ago when he warned, “If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.”