They threw very nice picnics, too.
I remember Democrat politicians who were honest, truthful, dedicated to the public which they served, all-around good guys.
Those were the days.
What happened? How did they become the party of puberty blockers, censorship, projection, and globalist hypocrisy? But then the ones I knew and worked with have probably all died out by now.
The Evil Party carries on without them.
The same “revolutionaries” (aka Communists) who deliberately infiltrated the universities, the media/entertainment industry, and many of the unions and civil rights organizations also infiltrated the government. And each first generation of infiltrators produced the next generation – through indoctrination but also through hiring, promoting, and funding – and so on, until the revolutionaries were no longer infiltrators but mainstream. However, revolutionaries (aka Communists, progressives, etc.) must continue to revolutionize, so they continue to push further and further left of the last generation of revolutionaries, who are now “moderates” or even “reactionaries.” And all who oppose the revolution must be destroyed.
In a way, “progressives” or “revolutionaries” or whatever they call themselves at the moment are much like adolescents, always pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with, and once they get away with one thing, they have to keep pushing harder in order to keep their status as Rebels Against The Stolid Older Generation. The trouble is that these grownup adolescents have the money and power and connections that chronological adolescents don’t have, and therefore they’re far more dangerous. Actual adolescents can be slapped down. The adult variety have carved out positions from which they can slap the rest of us down.
And how the dickens do we get out of this???
I know what you mean about democrats. My parents were democrats, and man of the other people I knew years ago. Everything just slid into the mud pit somewhere along the line.
It’s about more than party affiliation. The agenda of the left has become the branding of the Democratic Party. That has attracted people in agreement with that agenda, and it has snowballed. Men like Harry Truman were decent, caring people who loved America. There were good Dems, but these days, being a Dem means accepting a far Left agenda. As Ronald Reagan famously said: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me.”
All those good-guy mayors, councilmen, Congressmen, state Senate and Assembly members–gone like they never existed.
You just nailed it, Unknowable2. I couldn’t agree more.
I sometimes feel that way about many things. I’ve loved music since my earliest memories, but music has changed and there’s very little new music which leaves a positive impression on me. It seems that many of the good things we use to take for granted have vacated.
However…. Before we idealize the “old” Democrats too much, remember that they were the party of segregation, and not just in the Deep South. They also fought against every civil rights act that was proposed. And they ran corrupt Chicago and NYC’s Tammany Hall. Still, they weren’t yet completely commie in the days we’re talking about. And yes, there were a lot of local Democrats who did take care of their constituents. My own Democrat Congressman in the Bronx was one of those.
Only two of the Dems I regularly covered wound up in jail. And then along came Abscam…
You make some good points. The Dems have never been my favorite, but there have been some who were good people, and effective leader. I have many problems with John F Kennedy’s moral choices, but he was an effective president and had enough sense to realize that the Vietnam situation was not going anywhere good. I can overlook some of his flaws, but that is not to say that I approve of the choices he allegedly made with regard to sexual conduct.
No leader, of any party, lives up to God’s righteousness. When I vote, I recognize that every candidate is an imperfect sinner, just like I am. I feel that the Republicans are more true to the nation’s interests than the Democrats, and I think it’s usually best to vote a straight ticket.
What amazes me is the degree to which party loyalty has become more important than anything else, in the Democratic camp. I have a hard time believing that every Democratic candidate actually supports all of the things that the Dems claim to support.
They’re crazy. If by some magical stroke Trump and Kackle were to change parties, all the Democrat voters would change with them.
Party discipline is everything to them.
Mimetic society describes this perfectly.
Founding Father John Adams warned against a two-party system, and George Washington was against parties altogether. Our nation has gone so far off track it does not know how to get back to its roots. We need an intervention of our most holy God or bye bye America.
I’m afraid parties and factions are part of human nature.
Interestingly enough, Chris Bray has just posted a Substack article on the same subject: “After Brezhnev,” a description of “mimetic societies” and the decline of the Democrat Party into one of those. Definitely worth a read:
https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/after-brezhnev
Thanks, Phoebe–I’ll read it as soon as I can summon up the energy.
That article nails it. It’s all about rituals, and protecting the cult. I use the word cult, because it is basically the same psychology.