My father was a Democrat. He admired John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey. My first significant encounter with presidential politics was during the Jimmy Carter era. Carter was a good peanut farmer, but a terrible president. The country was in the grip of a depression. So my political beliefs and ideals were shaped by the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. My father did not hate Republicans, and I did not hate Democrats. The Democratic Party today is nothing like the party of old. It is now a party consumed by a vitriolic hatred of the 45th President, Donald J. Trump, and his supporters. How can that inspire anyone?
I still remember the feeling I had when Reagan referred to America as the “shining city on a hill.” He explained why he used that description in his farewell address to America in 1989: “The phrase came from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he envisioned. What he envisioned was important because he was an early pilgrim, a man of early freedom. He came here on what we would call a little wooden boat, and like the other pilgrims, he was looking for a home where it would be free.”
I have spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever managed to express properly what I saw when I said it. But to me it was a great, proud city, built on rocks stronger than the oceans, windswept, blessed by God and full of people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports, buzzing with commerce and creativity.”
Compare that to what we heard from Vice President Kamala Harris and dozens of Democrats at their convention in Chicago. They promised joy and delivered hate-filled tirades about Trump. They mock Trump for his wealth and success but hope you forget the many mansions their political scams have built. Trump made his fortune building things in the private sector. Michelle Obama gets paid $850,000 per speech because she’s married to a former president. Bizarrely, she claimed, “For years, Donald Trump has done everything in his power to make people afraid of us… highly educated, successful people who happen to be black,” Obama said. How is that baseless political rhetoric? Get over it, Michelle.
Democrats claim Trump is a threat to democracy. That’s a bold claim considering they abandoned Joe Biden and exploited his 14 million disenfranchised voters to elect Harris president, even though she never received a single vote in any primary.
In addition to the hatred and fear the Democrats screamed in the arena, it took thousands of police officers outside to keep the peace. The hatred of Israel was everywhere. And they even welcomed a Planned Parenthood bus offering free abortions and vasectomies. Today’s Democrats are busy marketing abortion to women of all ages and at every stage of their pregnancy, with no regard for the emotional trauma it causes. This is definitely not your father’s Democratic Party. Yuck.
