The Democratic Party has long touted itself as the party of the disenfranchised, the working class, the minorities, and of science. But in actual fact, they have historically never been any of those things.
They began as the Party of slavery and, after they lost slavery during the Civil War, the Party of Jim Crow Laws using the Ku Klux Klan as their military branch to keep the freed slaves in their place, separate from white Americans. Blacks couldn’t share the same waiting rooms, the same schools, the same bathrooms, the same water fountains as whites in the south, nor could they sit anywhere but at the back of buses, giving up their seats for any white who wanted it. Democrats supported and pushed the denigration of black Americans, and fought tooth and nail to prevent the Republican sponsored Civil Rights Law from passing Congress. When they lost, a canny President Lyndon Johnson, himself no supporter of black Americans, nonetheless saw that by signing the bill, he could portray it as a Democrat initiative and pull black votes away from the Republican Party for decades. And that is, of course, what happened.
Only now are more and more black Americans becoming conservatives or at least recognizing, as has Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones, the good that President Trump has done for the black community Rep. Jones has become a Trump supporter and therefore a pariah among other Democrats in Georgia. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is unforgiving for those who step outside of the official Party’s line, and all black conservatives have been treated as has Rep. Jones. He confided to journalist Hayley Mason that he was resigning from his position as state representative because he was “sick and tired of me and my family being attacked and harassed by the Democrat Party for putting my country before my party.” He does not intend, as many have, to cross over to the Republican Party, however, because, he explained, “I intend to help the Democratic Party get rid of its bigotry against Black people that are independent and conservative.”
Mr. Jones has a morally fine intention, but one at which I think he will fail. No Democrat is going to listen to him any more than they have listened to the myriad of other black voices that have spoken out against the Democrat Party. This Party allows no dissention from any of its members, which caused one Congressman to switch from the Democrat to Republican Parties when the House voted to impeach the President and he voted no.
This is why the Democrat Party has been so successful in passing legislation or in blocking legislation and why Republicans have had far less success. All Democrats are expected to toe the Party line and vote as their leaders tell them to vote. In rare cases, the leadership may allow a few defections in order to preserve the ideas that they are moderates in their home districts, but as a general rule, if you are a Democrat, you do what you are told or the money dries up before your next election and your district get absolutely nothing of value in bills that are passed.
With Republicans, the opposite is the case. While the leadership encourages and cajoles its members to vote with the Party on any particular bill, Republicans generally do what they want or what they feel is right in any given situation. They are Republicans, but they may also be libertarians like Rand Paul, members of the Freedom Caucus like Rep. Jim Jordan, with ideas that may vary somewhat from what the leadership has been able to negotiate with the Democrats. These Republicans and others, will, ultimately, vote as they choose to vote. A great example is Mitt Romney, who when faced with two articles of impeachment which did not rise to the level of “Treason, high crimes and misdemeanors,” nonetheless voted “guilty” on one of the two articles. It could be argued that Romney was still smarting from President Trump’s choice NOT to offer him a cabinet position, or from the fact that he, a long-time politician, was unable to win the presidency while a businessman and reality TV star did so easily. Romney is not popular among most Republicans country-wide, but the Senate certainly did not censor him for his unpopular, unreasonable vote.
It is not only Democrats in Congress who are expected to walk lockstep with their national leaders. Michigan State Representative Karen Whitsett, a black woman, caught the Coronavirus. She had heard President Trump talk about the great results that doctors across the world had been having when they used hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat the virus. She consulted her doctor and he decided to prescribe the drug. Later, when she quickly recovered, both he and Ms. Whitsett publicly credited the President’s comments with having saved her life. One would expect that everyone would rejoice at her recovery and be glad that the drugs had saved her life. But not the Democrats of Michigan. Governor Whitmer had originally banned doctors from prescribing the treatment and cautioned pharmacies not to fill prescriptions for it. She had to back down and allow its use, however, when the FDA approved the drug on an emergency basis as a treatment for the virus. Ms. Whitsett’s fellow legislators, like the Governor, were angry that the Representative dared thank President Trump for his comments which had led to her quick recovery. Governor Whitmer (no relation!) has sent Ms. Whitsett a number of nasty emails since then and the legislature has censored her for daring to be grateful to the man she feels saved her life.
You can be a Republican and think for yourself. You cannot be a Democrat without at least pretending to hate the President and all Republicans. How sad to be a Democrat! But then, Democrats have always seemed to need someone to hate – blacks, conservatives, white men – someone. It seems to be who they are.