This statement seems to be true most of the time. It is especially true every 2 years in the run-up to, and day of, our national elections. This post does not pertain to those poor souls who have voted a straight ticket, in favor of either party, for more than the last four or more elections. They don’t need anyone to fool them. They’re already foolish enough to believe that every candidate running for office from their party is more qualified than every candidate from the other party.
There is nothing inherently wrong about being a traditional Liberal. I have a number of friends who claim that moniker. We even agree on a few things. A traditional Liberal believes in civil liberties, open markets, and the rule of law. They believe in equality, private property, and individual rights. They believe in freedom of the press, religion, and speech. These are nice platitudes. The rub occurs when it is assumed that the values of traditional Liberalism are represented by the democratic party of today. It is not!
Thirty years ago they were mostly correct in that assumption. Over the last 30 years the democratic party has mutated. The democratic party used to represent the common person, the workers. One could argue that democrats have essentially split into two distinct groups. There are the Liberals and the Progressives. Each of these groups is further divided into two sub groups. First there is the leadership. Some of the democratic leaders have marched steadily to the left, away from Liberal, toward Progressive. So far left they can’t actually be identified as Liberals at all. Then there are the the real Liberals. These are the people who have trudged to the polls every 2 years to vote for democrats because they believe they shared values. Some of these people are learning that too many democratic candidates don’t represent what they used to. There are still too many of them who refuse to be convinced they have been fooled.
Progressives/Socialists (P/S) are taking control of the democratic party. There was a time when a candidate would go ballistic if someone called him a Socialist. In 2016 and 2020 a self proclaimed Socialist nearly won the nomination as the presidential candidate from the democratic party. If the democratic leadership hadn’t cheated for Hillary Clinton in 2016 Bernie Sanders could have won. If the democratic leadership hadn’t colluded against him in 2020 he almost certainly would have won the nomination. Think of that. We were a whisker away from having an avowed Socialist on the ticket for one of the two major political parties! It is not difficult to identify several members of the congressional democratic caucus who align with Sanders who choose not to call themselves Socialists. These people are being supported by real voting liberals.
There was a time when the liberal UC Berkeley lived up to its self proclaimed title of “bastion of free speech”. Today they would be more correctly known as the “bastion of free speech, if it meets our approval”. If a speaker espousing a right of center opinion meets resistance from a few fascist students on campus their message is cancelled by the University. So much for free speech. What a pitiful fall for such a proud institution. The good news for Berkeley is that they are joined by way too many other institutions of higher learning. But what is good news for Berkeley is terrible news for our nation.
There was a time when we only had three outlets that disseminated news. That was enough. All three understood that it was their job to put information in front of the American people and let us decide things for ourselves. Today they tell us what we should think without delivering the actual news. Most Americans now get their news elsewhere. When Twitter is your source for news the veracity of that news is no better than a crap shoot. Think about it. What is the root word of Twitter? That is a direct result of our “free press” abandoning its constitutional roll as a government watchdog. Freedom of the press was granted in the 1st Amendment to insure there would be a watchdog for government corruption. They are now lapdogs for the Left. This transformation is nothing but bad news for the American people. It means there is nobody watching out for governmental corruption. That is especially true for those who get all of their news from the networks. Feeling secure they are informed helps them deny they have been fooled.
The two parties have almost completely changed places. The democratic party is increasingly being controlled by Hollywood, billionaires, big corporations, Silicon Valley, hedge fund managers, college professors, and other elites. These people, with their campaign contributions, have found a warm welcome from the party that used to watch out for the little guy. Democrats signed horrible trade deals that led to the closing of thousands of factories. That meant good, middle class, jobs were lost to overseas competitors. They continued to increase corporate taxes. Corporations were forced to move to countries with more friendly tax environments. They took their good jobs with them. They opened our borders. That allowed a flood of low wage illegal immigrants to take entry level and low paying jobs from Americans. The flood of low wage earners continued to push hourly wages lower for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. That allowed fat cat corporations to stuff extra profits onto their bottom lines. Of course some of those profits found their way to sleezy elected representatives. So much for the common, working, people. Voting democrats need to understand these basic facts when they enter the voting booth next time.
On to the second group. The real Liberals. These folks say they are for equality, private property individual rights, and working people. They say freedom of speech, religion, the press, and the rule of law, are important. Finally they believe in our Constitution. And they vote for democrats anyway? The people they vote for are in favor of confiscating the firearms of law abiding citizens. This policy ignores the 2nd Amendment. They have forbade church services which violates one of the freedoms listed in the 1st Amendment. The Constitution calls for the President to be elected by the Electoral College. Democratic leaders want to abolish it. When I ask Liberals if they think it is okay to abort children 5 minutes before birth they immediately answer in the negative. Elected democrats are almost unanimous in supporting abortion at any stage of a pregnancy. Some support allowing the survivor of a botched abortion to die. You could call that infanticide. No sane person would want to defund the police. The P/S are calling for the complete elimination of some law enforcement agencies, and reduced funding for police departments. The rule of law includes the doctrine of innocent until proven guilty. This age old principle has been pummeled in the U.S. thanks to the “cancel culture”, and “wokeness”. Too many people have lost their jobs because of their beliefs. Young men have been expelled from college because of an alleged sexual assault. Rules put in place by the Obama administration made it impossible for the accused to have their day in court. No freedom loving American should stand still while this lawlessness exists. It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled. People who continue to vote for democrat candidates because of what they used to stand for are being fooled. A growing number of blacks and Hispanics figured it out this election. For the sake of our progeny I hope others will take the time to be better informed in 2022.