The Growing Divide Between Democrats and Democratic Socialists

Freedom is lost … when not defended. Today, many Americans are afraid to offer opinions; fear is rising. Caustic words replace civil ones. Violence is the default. Ignorance of history and  law are deemed acceptable. Too often, stopping a conversation trumps having one. For a republic founded on free speech, this is an ominous turn.

Campaigning for governor, you learn a lot, see a lot. You learn that being approachable, open to hearing people disagree, and not reacting emotionally is unexpected. Forgotten is history: the fact that this used to be standard, a sign of adulthood, being squared away.

You learn that deep anger lives within many people, elevated when they are shut down for expressing dissatisfaction over poor leadership, mismanagement, ideological shifts. This is unhealthy, sign of a republic’s fraying, loss of perspective, giving up, no patience with each other.

You learn that some are willing still to entertain hope, work to restore normal, but the balance is visibly shifting. Some will work to fix what is broken, while others are backing away, disconnecting.

Henry David Thoreau, 150 years ago, wrote: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city … you go into the desperate country …” Today, desperation is mounting, seems worse than in his  day.

So, what is the remedy? Honest discussion, hope, hard work, fearless effort to restore respect for basic freedoms. Civility is a worthy goal, but beings with freedom to criticize, and patience; part of civility is inviting criticism, responding with facts not emptions, violence or oppression.

Objectively, a new brand of radical behavior is afoot. It pushes concentrated power, one-party rule at all levels, pretends this is good. It is not and is not normal, not historically American, just the opposite. It has happened before, and is happening again. One-party rule is dangerous.

Why? One-party rule at any level of government represents a departure from our founding principles – balance, accountability, checks and balances. If we lose accountability, it is over.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) push traditional Democrats to give up their party, become complicit in suppressing speech, promise utopia with one-party rule. If history were understood, the danger would be obvious to many who seem not to see it; it is ominous.

While any concentration of power is dangerous, right or left, suppression of the right to speak is a clear warning sign, the beginning of something unconstitutional. It is also a hallmark of the DSA, which wants to see one-party rule across America, ending the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, institutions of the republic, terminating the prison system, law enforcement, and military.

To say this is absurd is accurate, but in some ways misses the point. In the context of our history, our founding, the DSA approach to political rule is unacceptable; one state at at time, it will end our constitutional republic. Anyone who does not disavow the DSA is playing with fire – yet political actors in the Democratic Party –from California to Maine – think the DSA helps them.

Bottom line: The traditional Democratic Party is ceding control to the DSA, a group of avowed Marxists with no respect for our Constitution. This is dangerous to all Americans, yet many traditional Democrats seem unmoved, ready to accept the group, thinking the DSA helps them.

Embracing the crocodile’s appetite for your political opponents is – as Churchill noted – self-defeating; the croc will eventually come for you. The DSA is hollowing out the traditional Democratic Party, and someone needs to wake up, tell traditional Democrats that their own rights to free speech and free markets, Bill of Rights to seminal institutions is under assault.

If Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman were alive, they would be vigorously opposed to the DSA and any Democrat who did not reject them. They would be working to restore sanity and stop the rise of this disease within the ranks of state leaders. They both knew as seminal fact: Freedom is lost … when not defended.