What's Wrong with Democrats?
What's Wrong with Democrats?
All political parties are susceptible to over-reach. American Democrats seem to have made over-reach their mission.
Jun. 7 - Paula Collins is a Democrat running against the incumbent Republican Elise Stefanik for New York’s 21st Congressional District. At least she will be once she wins the June 25 primary, in which she’s running unopposed.
The district comprises most of northeastern New York—the hinterlands referred to as “upstate.”
Stefanik has represented the district since 2014. She’s the fourth-ranking Congressional Republican, the House Republican Conference Chair, and is reportedly on Donald Trump’s short list of possible vice-presidents.
Collins is therefore a long-shot candidate, which may explain why she’s willing to push the envelope a little. By “push the envelope,” I mean “fantasize aloud about sending Trump supporters to re-education camps”:
Paula Collins, who is running unopposed in the June 25 Democratic primary, made the shocking suggestion during a virtual town hall event on Wednesday and argued that there is a need for such camps even if Democrats see a “resounding blue wave” in the 2024 election.
Collins, 60, argued that “knowing your civics, knowing how the government is set up will be crucially important in moving forward” before suggesting the need for “re-education” during the Zoom event.
“Knowing your civics”—civics like the venerable American tradition, enshrined in the Constitution, of forcing people whose ideas you dislike to be forcibly brainwashed into your way of thinking?
But don’t worry, she’s not an idiot:
“I don’t think we really wanna call it that,” she told voters on the call. “I’m sure we can find another way to phrase it.”
By gum, these modern Democrats are so committed to democracy that they’re willing to set up gulags to defend it! But they’re also savvy enough to know that “gulags” sound foreign and yucky and “re-education” has a distinctly authoritarian feel.
So they’ll be Super Happy Fun Thinky-Time Vacations!
Are you an American citizen who believes in limited government, individual liberty, the primacy of the Constitution? Have you expressed a skeptical thought or two about the climate emergency, or perhaps said regrettable things about men competing in women’s sports? Have you uttered racist phrases like “all lives matter,” or sexist phrases like “men can’t get pregnant?” Have you even contemplated voting for that enemy of America, the dread tyrant Trumpf?
Off to Super Happy Fun Thinky-Time Vacation Camp you go!
Let’s not make this about Paula Collins, though, because it’s not really about her. It’s about her party. We can’t dismiss her extremism as the stray voltage of a hopeless candidate running a hapless campaign, because, as the same article reminds us:
“So many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump who has no credibility left by any measure,” (Hillary) Clinton said during an October 2023 appearance on CNN, referring to the 77-year-old former president’s Make America Great Again slogan.
“And when do they break with him? You know, because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen,” she added.
That’s Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Cruella De Vil of modern American politics, just seven months ago. Something needs to happen, she says. Something like “formal deprogramming.” There is a need for such camps, says Collins.
Dagblammit, if these people won’t agree with us nicely, we’ll make them agree with us!
Bzzt! Bzzzzt! Clang, clang—chukka chukka—whirrrrrr…..!
Did you hear that? Someone fired up the Wayback Machine—and look, you guys, they set a course for 1998!
According to Wikipedia:
"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a phrase popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a conspiracy by Clinton's political enemies.
The “continued allegations of scandal,” it’s worth noting, turned out to be the unvarnished truth. Hillary Clinton knew it even as she smeared and slandered the people speaking the truth. The only vast conspiracy in play was the Democrats’ collusion with media to keep the truth from reaching the American people. And the truth was that Bill couldn’t keep his willie—did he really call it his Arkansaurus?—in his pants.
Go ahead and watch this video from about the 1:10 mark to watch one of the most flagrant, remorseless, accusatory lies in modern American presidential history:
Wag that finger one more time, Bill. Wag it one. More. Time.
That conspiracy to keep the truth from the American people failed, but not for want of trying. And yet neither she nor her party ever paid a price for the lies they told to protect Bill Clinton—who got off pretty easy himself.
(Monica Lewinsky: “Says you!”)
There’s a lot of fretting from the left today over whether Donald Trump would seek vengeance against his enemies if he were to win a second term.
I think they’re afraid of his taking an Ezekiel 25:17 approach:
Here’s a hypothesis you don’t hear much: what if the most destructive force of vengeance in America today, and for the better part of the past three decades, is and has been that of Hillary Clinton?
Wronged as a wife, wronged by the electorate when they chose Barack Obama over her even though everyone knew it was her turn, wronged again when they went for Bernie Sanders instead of her during the 2016 Democratic primary (until the party rigged it for her), and then the coup de grâce, the wronging that broke her: when those stupid, ignorant, dirty, filthy voters chose Trump over her.
Trump! Over her!
A case could be made that this one woman’s anger, frustration, resentment, and rachelust—her passion for revenge—have been the primal forces driving the dysfunction and dischord of American politics for decades.
(Rachelust is German, not Danish. The Danish is hævnlyst. That’s why I went with the German.)
It’s an interesting hypothesis, which is why I threw it out there, but it hardly matters: Clinton’s Ahabian rachelust wouldn’t matter if her political party were healthy enough to reject it. If instead of coddling and enabling her the Democrats had just tossed her out like so much spoiled milk, America and the world would be much better off.
The Democratic party is many things, but healthy is not one of them. Their tolerance of this one-woman wrecking crew—this hideous, grasping, vicious, selfish, hate-filled woman—is just one of their many, many grotesqueries.
Even taking the Hillary Revenge Machine out of the party, Democrats have still made themselves answerable to a set of constituencies whose only shared ideological “plank” is a seething hatred for the United States.
The BLM and 1619 activists and ideologues insist that America is a country that was born in sin: that slavery and racism are built into its DNA and that it must therefore be torn down.
The Rainbow activists and ideologues insist that American culture is oppressive due its heteronormativity and that it can only be fixed by the complete destruction of social norms regarding sex, gender, sexuality, parenthoood, and family.
The anti-capitalist activists and ideologues—the socialists and communists—still want the overthrow of private property and the establishment of a redistributionist economy controlled by the state.
The atheist activists and ideologues believe the Bill of Rights guarantees not freedom of religion but freedom from religion, and want all practices of faith driven out of American culture.
The climate extremists want to tear everything down to establish a new Eden in which we all live in communal harmony with nature—a cold, hungry, sick, and impoverished way of life, perhaps, but one hundred percent organic and renewable.
The newest member of this coalition of anti-American zealots is the Hamas constitutency: the activists and ideologues who have chosen to take the side of Hamas over Israel since October 7, and who aren’t ashamed to chant “Death to America” on American soil.
I want to emphasize that I’m talking about the activists and ideologues in each of these constituencies. The regular Joe who kicks a few bucks to Greenpeace to save the whales, or slaps a Pride bumper sticker on his Prius, may still harbor some affection for America. It’s the zealots at the top of these organizations, and the minions that staff them, and the street thugs who tear shit up when necessary at their behest, that hate the country and create all the rancor.
There’s not a single one of these groups that enjoys the support of more than a small minority of the American public. Even gathered into a single heap, I doubt they’d represent more than 20% of Americans. But since they’re all on the left, and because the Democrats have been so willing to accommodate them, they wield an enormous influence on American politics.
What’s troubling (but unsurprising) is the way that this contempt for America—for its politics and its culture—has translated into a hatred for people who don’t share the same dark view. Not just from the activists and ideologues of these angry groups, but from the Democratic party itself, and from its politicians, including those who hold office.
That includes the president and all of his cabinet officers; the Senate Majority Leader; the House Minority Leader; a Supreme Court Justice who thought she was taking some kind of moral high ground by refusing to define the meaning of the word “woman”; and countless governors and mayors and DAs and judges across the country. It’s bad enough these people harbor such terrible feelings about the country and people they’re sworn to represent, but they actually act on these prejudices.
They portray their political adversaries as the enemies of democracy and a clear and present danger to America, even as they themselves openly declare their contempt for the country, its history, and its culture.
As Barack Obama’s pastor famously proclaimed, “God damn America"!”
And double God damn anyone opposing our effort to save the country by tearing it down!
Lest you think I’m making mountains out of molehills, a Gallup poll from about a year ago found that Americans’ pride in their country has been sliding for decades. Just twenty years ago, 90-91% of Americans were extremely or very proud to be American. By 2023 that number had fallen to 67%.
In 2003, 86% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats were extremely proud of their country. In 2023, only 60% of Republicans and 29% of Democrats felt that way.
I suspect the presence of Republican in the White House would kick the Republican numbers back into the 70s, at least, but what’s wrong with Democrats? They’ve got a Democrat president, a Democrat Senate, they more or less own all of America’s big cities and its two most populous states. The media run cover for them, big tech amplifies their messages and squashes dissent, and academia has transformed itself into their recruitment pipeline. They’re in the driver’s seat, but they’re ashamed of their car?
The numbers only get worse when age is factored in:
Get a load of the youngsters—especially the Democratic youngsters.
Only 18% of 18-34 year olds as a whole are “extremely proud” to be American. Even if you add in the “very proud,” it’s still only 42% of the total age cohort. 11% are “not at all proud,” 15% are “only a little proud,” and 31% are “moderately proud.”
And yet. . .
And yet here, as elsewhere, perhaps the discontent is being oversold. There’s obviously a decline in the overall level of extreme pride, but the share of Americans who are “not at all” proud of the country has only ticked up from 1% of the population in January 2001 to 4% last June.
That’s a 400% increase, sure, and that’s not good, but it’s also. . . well, it’s like getting a bill for 101 bucks and finding out it’s actually 104 bucks you owe. It’s not good, but it’s not that big deal, is it?
The headline with which Gallup promoted that poll was “Extreme Pride in Being American Remains Near Record Low,” which is true, and certainly sad (if you’re fond of America), but it’s also still the case that only 4% of Americans aren’t at all proud of their country. Are we going to gnash our teeth because Americans have gotten a little more stoic about their country?
Maybe if elected Democrats and the establishment media and big tech and academia lightened up on their contempt for America they’d be surprised to see how love of country could be kindled even in the hearts of most Democrats—even angry ones.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery—but loved America. Martin Luther King loved America. They were also both Republicans, but leave that aside: both men loved the idea of America, and wanted to help it live up to its own promise. They saw its transgressions but sought to make it better rather than to burn it down.
Democrats could learn from their examples.
Until they do, however, the vicious cycle will continue: they’ll keep telling Americans how awful their country is (and has been), Americans receptive to that messagewill continue to feel less pride in the greatest country in the world, and Democrats will therefore find it necessary to keep talking the country down to win the support of their increasingly discontented base.
Most Americans love their country and don’t appreciate being told that their love makes them enemies of democracy, America, etc.
The Democratic party is bleeding support in almost every demographic—and until they get back in the business of loving their country, I doubt that’s going to turn around.
That’s what’s wrong with Democrats.
Tordesillas Remembered (and Forgotten, and Remembered Again)
On June 7, 1494, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas.
In the volatile, war-torn world in which we live, many historical documents have become required reading. Not this one. You will never be standing at a cocktail party where someone says, "It's all because of that damn Treaty of Tordesillas." No one will ever blame the failures of the Middle East Peace Process or the west’s simmering hostilities with Russia and China on the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Tordesillas. You'll never see your favorite pundit toss off the "Treaty of Tordesillas" in an ironic and off-handed way. You won't hear Noam Chomsky cite it as a cause or effect of American imperialism. It will never attract the directorial eye of Michael Moore or Oliver Stone. Robert De Niro won’t hold a profanity-infused press conference to rail against it. You already know more about that treaty than most people alive today. You may now forget it ever existed. It has no relevance to your life.
(See note.)
Ugo Buoncompagni was born on June 7, 1502. He became Pope Gregory III in 1572 and remained the Pope until 1585. He is best known for reforming the Julian calendar, which is why it's now Gregorian instead of Julian. Had he reformed the calendar before becoming Pope, it would be the Ugian Calendar. That would have been a calendar worth having.
June 7 is Liberation Day in Chad, Prince Joachim's Birthday here in Denmark, Republic Day in Iceland, Riot Commemoration Day in Malta, and Unionsopplosningen in Norway.
That's right—Unionsopplosingen, dammit!
Unionsopplosingen is the Norwegian celebration of the historic Treaty of Tordesillas, whose benefits to Norway hardly need explanation. (As the world's most renowned Norwegian intellectual has colorfully put it, “The floor was greased and the cat heard bells!”)
Anna Kournikova turns 43 and shares her birthday with Prince (1958), Tom Jones (1940), Dean Martin (1917), Jessica Tandy (1909), Paul Gauguin (1848), and the aforementioned Ugo.
Note
When the original version of the Treaty of Tordesillas article first appeared in the almanac twenty years ago, a reader wrote in:
...I just read your Almanac entry and must respectfully disagree with your line: “You will never be standing at a cocktail party where someone says, 'It's all because of that damn Treaty of Tordesillas.”
While I will concede that I have not actually uttered the exact words at a cocktail party, I have certainly thought the very words (or something close to them) a few times. Most memorably when I found myself at the University trying to read an article from a Brazilian scientific Journal. And the damn institute had only a Spanish-Danish dictionary. So I was trying to do the conversion from Portuguese to Spanish (since they are related kinda like Danish and Swedish) by guessing what a Spanish version of each word looked like and looking it up (….) Needless to say, before long I happened to look out the window (The Niels Bohr Institute on Blegdamsvej is located right next to Fælledparken in Østerbro), saw that the weather was wonderful, and went outside to catch some rays and eat ice cream. I never did get to find out if the article might have been relevant to my thesis on distance determination for globular clusters and how that relates to the Age of the Universe. And it was all because of that damn Treaty of Tordesillas!
After all, when Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty, which specified how they were to divide the world between them, they assured that Brazil would end up speaking Portuguese and the rest of South and Central America would speak Spanish.
This division of labor between the two also ensured that a rising Spain did not have to fight it out with Portugal, but could get on with it and concentrate full bore on meeting the natives in the new world and introduce them to new and exotic diseases. While Montezuma probably never heard of the Treaty, had his dying words been “Damn the treaty of Tordesillas!” it would have been very appropriate.
I stood corrected at the time and remain corrected to this day (especially since the author of that correction is a friend and subscriber).
Amended: You will never be standing at a cocktail party where someone says, "It's all because of that goddam distance determination for globular clusters!"
Weekend Stuff
Ives W. McGaffey of Chicago patented his "sweeping machine," the first suction vacuum cleaner, on June 8, 1869, suggesting that Chicago was famous for sucking long before the emergence of the Cubs.
On June 8, 632, Mohammed died. He was the founder of Islam, and his death was the first in a long chain of events that ultimately resulted in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
Ninety years ago Sunday (June 9), an American legend made his first appearance on the silver screen. Since then, he has appeared in over 450 films in more than 200 languages, held lead roles in dozens of television serials and hundreds of specials, and has been featured in books and magazines in every language. He has done all of this without wearing pants.
He is, of course, the world's favorite lazy, hot-headed, bare-assed mallard: Donald Duck.
Birthdays and Holidays
June 8 birthdays include Boz Scaggs (1944), Nancy Sinatra (1940), Barbara Bush (1925), Frank Lloyd Wright (1867), R.A. Schumann (1810), and Sir Francis Crick (1916).
Michael J. Fox turns 63 on June 9. He shares his birthday with Jackie Mason (1934) and Cole Porter (1892), who was so pathetic at words poetic that he always thought it best, instead of getting them off his chest, to let 'em rest unexpressed.
The 9th is Arab Revolt and Army Day in Jordan and Luis de Camoes Day in Portugal.
Enjoy the weekend!
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