When the Entire Democratic Party Was Like Donald Trump

Reason ^ | 26 AUG 2015 | Matt Welch

[South40]

Here's your who-said-it of the day:

[W]e must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years […], Washington talked tough but failed to act….[O]ur borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again.

OK, so the headline gives it away, but that's the Democratic Party's official platform for 1996. Mirroring that year's Republican platform, which was arguably the most stringent anti-illegal-immigration tract in the GOP's modern history, the Dem document is filled with tough talk and premature victory laps:

[South40]

[nickcarraway]

Still is.

[South40]

The dim party has the most racist platform ever. It tells blacks and other minorities that they are incapable of being successful or even providing for themselves.

[Don Corleone]

DNC...RNC...Dumbocrats...Republicrats....they are all one and the same, out for themselves alone and FU citizens. Out with them all, a few at a time or preferably all at once.

[exnavy]

They all need a stout rope and a fine hanging.

[Islander7]

[spintreebob]

America’s 2 Political Parties are and always have been coalitions of various interest groups. Most people do not vote ideologically. It would be difficult if they did as most people’s ideology is not logically consistent.

But R and D have each had a thread that has persisted hundreds of years. The Democrats have always had the “brother’s keeper” paradigm started by the first Democrat, Cain, the first murderer. Whether it is the government enforced slavery of the plantation or the welfare state plantation, the Democrat party has always seemed to have the idea that some people are better qualified to run the lives of less enlightened people.

Republican have tended more for the Judeo-Christian tradition expressed in the old testament:
Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord - Joshua.
Everyman did what was right in his own eyes - Judges.
You will rue the day you choose a king and he imposes taxes and wars on you - Samuel.

Previously Republicans normally ignored or rejected the theology of Cain. But recently I’ve heard both Rafael Cruz at one end of the party and John Kasich at the other end of the party take positions that are essentially collectivist and anti-Judeo-Christian tradition.

At its base, that is why so many see the two parties as the same. Both parties think that government politicians and bureaucrats can run other people’s lives better than the ordinary people can. We expect that of Democrats. But we do not expect it of Repub licans, which is why the rebellion, the vehicle of Trump to express that rebellion and anger is in the Republican side.

On the other side, Democrats think that, of course, government is there to take care of us. For them the lesson of the civil war was that government should be kind and gentle in taking care of us and not beating us with a club or lead.

Thus, when Democrat Ferguson in Democrat St Louis County under a Democrat Governor seems mean and not kind and gentle they are outraged. When Democrat Baltimore acts unkindly they are outraged. When Democrat New Your acts unkindly they are outraged. The social contract of a kind and gentle government to take care of them have been violated.