When it comes to our government, we truly live in strange and interesting times.  We’re approaching the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence.  Such an anniversary should be proof of the strength and durability of our Republic, but it’s not.  Instead, we find ourselves at a delicate and precarious time in our politics.

Our Constitution says nothing at all about political Parties.  In fact, George Washington warned of the danger of political “factions.”  That said, for more than 200 years, with rare exception, our elections have been dominated by two Parties, but not the same two Parties we know today.  Stick with me on this, there is a point.

For the first two presidential elections there were no Parties.  Washington was the obvious choice.  The Federalist Party grew from Washington’s Administration, and in 1796 John Adams won under that banner, against the Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson.  When the Democratic -Republicans won 6 elections in a row, the Federalist Party just faded away.  The second Party became the Independent Republicans, and then the National Republicans.

Think the Trump MAGA takeover of the Republican Party in 2016 was novel? It wasn’t.  In 1828, Andrew Jackson turned the Democratic-Republicans into the Jacksonian Democrats.  A splinter Democrat Party sprung up 4 years later.

1836 saw the birth of 2 new Parties.  The Democrats, who were more populist, and the Whigs, who favored wealthier interests.  The Democrat Party has endured.  Not so the Whigs.  The Whig Party was torn apart, largely over the issue of slavery.  Northern Whigs split from Southern Whigs, and by 1848 the Whigs ceased to exist.

They were replaced by various factions.  The Free Soil Party sought to contain slavery in the South.  The American Party, or the Know Nothings, were fervently against immigration.  Yes, immigration was an issue even back then.  The Republican Party appeared for the 1856 presidential election.  In 1860, 4 Parties vied, leading of course to the Civil War.

Why the history lesson?  The point is that people change, interests change, and political Parties, torn by competing interests, don’t last forever.  They come and go, and as this is written the Democrat Party is approaching one of those watershed moments in its history.  Indeed, both Parties have been changing of late.

For most of my life, the accepted wisdom was that the Democrats supported the working man, while Republicans favored the moneyed interests.  The influence of Donald Trump has changed that landscape, and Republicans have become the populists.  Maybe that’s not all due to Trump.  The landscape was changing for many years, and Trump profited by the changes.

About 25 years ago, we saw the advent of the Dotcom billionaires, who took in vast sums of money.  Vast sums of money are very valuable for political Parties.  As the newly minted billionaires were largely from the liberal Left, they began financing the Democrats.  They became so important to the Democrat cause that they exerted more and more influence over our elections.

In 2016, Donald Trump became the skunk at the garden party for Democrats, who, in 2020, used their alliance with the Leftist billionaires to smear Trump, and block his usage of their social media platforms, ushering in the reign of Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden.  Throughout this period, the Democrat Party progressively (how’s that for a turn of phrase) moved itself further and further to the Left.

This leftward movement of Democrats begat the so called Democratic Socialists, whose so called “Squad,” AOC and company, only accelerated the leftist shift, and correspondingly accelerated the polarization of politics in America.

Not so very long ago, the Democrats and Republicans were not so far apart.  Democrats always leaned closer to expanding social welfare programs, going back to LBJ’s War on Poverty.  The abiding difference between the Parties was largely one of perspective.  While both understood the need for a governmental social safety net, Republicans viewed the net as a trampoline, from which recipients would be propelled into the workforce once put on their feet by government assistance.  Democrats, however, fancy the safety net a hammock, into which generation after generation of recipients could be settled, thereupon being forever reminded who was supplying the butter they were spreading on their EBT acquired bread.

The Democratic Socialists, emboldened by the election of Biden, and confident that they had slain the evil Orange Dragon, Trump, began to drop the pretense that they were merely the good old Democrats of yore, and openly exhibited their true colors – a bright shade of Red.  Simply put, they’re Marxists, bent on “fundamentally transforming” the U.S. into the latest Socialist paradise.  Think Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, writ large.  The election of Mamdani in New York, an avowed Socialist who boasts plans for free buses, rent freezes, defunded police, and government controlled grocery stores, was just the red icing on the cake.

Donald Trump has profited by the leftward shift of the Democrats.  More conservative Democrats found themselves unwelcome in the Democrat Party.  The so called Reagan Democrats in Congress are long gone, replaced by doctrinaire leftists.  JFK, RFK, Jr., and even Bill Clinton could never be nominated by today’s Democrat Party.

More importantly, essential elements of the Democrat Party base, long looked upon as sure Democrat voters, are being torn away by the populist message of Trump and the new Republicans.  The 2024 election proved that point, as a disturbing number of black and Hispanic voters moved away, sensing that the Republicans are better attuned to their needs than are the Dems.  It seems that these groups, including many union members, aren’t comfortable with the prospect of a government that will dictate their compensation and benefits, so as to better the lives of American and illegal alien hammock dwellers.

Finally, even the left wing billionaires got the message (I don’t know what took them so long) that a Socialist/Marxist government would put their business interests, and as a result their fortunes, in the hands of profligate spenders who have never run anything other than their own mouths, much less a business.

Yet, after last November, the Democrat Party still hasn’t gotten the message, or maybe has gone past the point where it can turn itself away from the precipice it’s approaching.  The Party is increasingly in the hands of the Socialists like Bernie Sanders and AOC, and it continues to steadily march to the Left.

Witness the recent government shut down.  The Republicans passed a clean continuing resolution, which maintained spending at its current obscene level.  Democrats resisted, shutting down the government for 7 weeks, denying pay to the military and to air traffic controllers, but not to members of Congress.  It became known as the Schumer Shutdown, as the Detestable Chuck Schumer prevented the Senate from voting to open the government.

Schumer, no moderate he, knew better than to do such a thing, but he was powerless to do otherwise, lest the crazy Left wing base of his Party stage a revolt – against him.  He learned this the hard way when he signed off on an identical continuing resolution last March, and got his head handed to him by the Socialists.

Schumer’s 7 week resistance this time profited him nothing.  Eight Democrat Senators finally voted to open the government, getting nothing more than the promise of a vote on health care subsidies, a promise they were offered weeks ago and refused.

The loony leftist Democrats are now incensed, and want Schumer out as Leader.  The 8 Democrats who voted to open the government are being denounced as traitors.  Add to this the unfortunate Democrat prediliction to inciting violence to get whatever they want, as Antifa thugs attack police officers in the streets, and conservative voices, such as those from Turning Point USA, on college campuses, and the Democrat Party is facing the same sort of schism that did in the Whigs so very long ago.

The end of the Democrat Party as we know it is not inevitable, but it remains a distinct possibility.  A continued exodus of Hispanic voters, many of whom came here to escape Socialism, and of sensible union members who are not ready for a Communist revolution, would render the electoral success of the Democrat Party, as currently constituted, impossible.  Any further losses to the evil Orange Man and his followers would inspire only more violence, further hastening its demise.

It’s possible that cooler heads will prevail, but I wouldn’t care to bet on it, at least not now.  Yes, the times truly are strange and interesting.  We can only hope to avoid the warfare that ensued when the Whigs went away.