Movement
The political left never stops to examine that reference point, they never lament how far left the Democratic Party has drifted, how they are much closer to communists today than they have ever been.
Elon Musk’s Twitter posting of the visual about how far left the Democrats have gone reminded me of something I wrote back in June of 2013 when we had just returned from Scotland to Texas.
A gentleman by the name of Jim Farrell wrote an editorial in our local paper, he a lifelong union man and Democrat, and since I am always interested in a Democrat’s opinion of why the Republican party is evil and dying, I read it with great anticipation.
Mr. Farrell wrote:
What has happened to your dad’s GOP?
Of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore, two are Republicans. The chance of another Republican being placed on that mountain dwindles daily as the far right (Christian Coalition, Tea Party, etc.) continues to exert undo influence on the once formidable “Grand Old Party.”
Back in the 1950s, Republican President Eisenhower signed The Federal Aid Highway Act (1956), which was the foundation of our national highway system that we all drive on today. However, the John Birch Society, a radical right-wing organization with little following at the time, were very much against this law. That did not care for “public work” programs or for President Eisenhower. The founder of the John Birch Society, Robert Welch, called the former American general and supreme allied commander during WWII “a dedicated conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” Really?
It continued in this manner with the standard Reagan bashing and then he winds up for the big finish, predictably praising Lincoln and a progressive Republican:
“Once upon a time, the Republican Party had the likes of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt to show our country what kind of leaders they could produce. Today, sadly, there is no one in their midst who can shine a candle to those leaders. The GOP has become the party of “Do nothing” and “Stand still.” To the contrary, as President Kennedy once said, “Change is the law of life. Those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
I responded in the comment section.
Respectfully, Mr. Farrell, it’s actually all about forced perspective, isn’t it?
If you climb into the stands at a football field and see two kids standing 50 yards apart and the only thing that you know about them is that they were once standing on the field together, it is pretty hard to tell which one moved away from the other. Without a reference point, you don’t know if one student moved right by 5 yards and the other moved left by 45 yards to create that gap.
You seem to be saying that the Democrats have always stood on the 50 yard line, in the very center, while the Republicans have sprinted to toward the right end zone and are now doing a goose-stepping victory dance in an SS uniform while waving a Nazi Party flag.
Why is it that the political left never stops to examine that reference point, they never lament how far left the Democratic Party has drifted, how they are much closer to communists they are than they were a short 50 years ago? There is no doubt that there has been a leftward drift in the mainstream Republican Party but the gap between the Republicans and Democrats was created by the Democrat lurch to the left, not the Republican swing to the right.
Republicans have proven to be big spenders as well, just not as big as Democrats. Reagan had to raise taxes to keep up with a Democratically controlled congress that wouldn’t stop spending long enough for the tax cuts that Reagan initiated to get the economy going – even with his tax cuts, government tax receipts grew – and the Democrats spend every dime…and then some.
The more salient question is what has happened to the Democrat Party of my father – it has become a tool of collectivists, statists and statolatrists, the party of death (abortion) and drugs, the party of appeasement and weakness. It has become the party of redistribution and “social justice”, of social engineering and class envy.
It looks more like Karl Marx than John Kennedy.
Perhaps that is the question that should be asked.
The Democrats have continued their sprint to the left end zone with the speed of an Alabama wide-out in he decade since I wrote that - and yet, not being possessed with the skill of self-examination, they have never answered that question - much less even asked it.
I’m a far right reactionary. I must be a closet racist/xenophobe etc etc. At least as far as most of society thinks. In fact, I haven’t moved. I’m what used to be dead center. A classical liberal. Leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone. Government should be small and efficient and only deal with things we can’t deal with singly. Budgets should be balanced. Anything else is theft from our grandchildren. No foreign wars unless absolutely necessary. Take care of our own first. And immigration should be based around bringing in someone who can fit in easily, and has a skill we need. Those were Democrat party positions, at least on the surface, not long ago. Now? I’m ‘literally Hitler!’