NEW SMYRNA -- It is very satisfying to go against the grain with the truth on one’s side. You find yourself humming the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” You don’t want to slip into smugness, but it’s tempting.
I wrote recently about the historical foundation and record of the Republican Party. Some “differently registered” friends of mine attempted to take me to the woodshed for some of my claims. Unfortunately for them, I’d documented every assertion, and the facts support my words.
Annoying things: facts. They can get in the way of what one wishes were true. I was not a child in 1968 when the Democrats held their Presidential Nominating Convention in Chicago. I was about to begin my third year of college. In the spring of 1970, I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Florida, graduating with honors. I began teaching high school students, and at the same time, began my master’s degree program.
Having turned 21, I registered to vote -- as a Democrat. Always attentive to politics, 1968 was the year that burns into my political conscience and set me on the path to participation in the “public square.” The assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Democtatic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy horrifyingly punctuated the year. Then there was the spectacle of the Chicago convention.
Having turned 21, I registered to vote -- as a Democrat. Always attentive to politics, 1968 was the year that burns into my political conscience and set me on the path to participation in the “public square.” The assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Democtatic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy horrifyingly punctuated the year. Then there was the spectacle of the Chicago convention.
All manner of societal renegades and counter-culture rebels duked it out in the streets with the Chicago police while the establishment Democrats struggled to find an acceptable nominee.
Protests. Violence. Arrests. The world seemed run amok.
The admirable Hubert Humphrey was nominated after much negotiation, but lost badly. To Richard Nixon! That was also the year the left started to make headway in its takeover of the modern-day Democrat Party.
Four years later, the Democratic Party nominated George McGovern and lost me. Oh, and lost the presidential contest again, something clearly more important than losing me.
Noemi Emery, author and journalist, noted: “Since 1972, when George McGovern's campaign gave us both Warren Beatty and identity politics, the Democratic Party has run on a combination of glitter and grievance. It taps the film, rock and fashion worlds for glamour and money, and meanwhile feigns concern for the victims of race and gender bias, paying them off with a system of quotas, while stoking their long-standing fears.”
Since then, the Democrat Party has brought us the feckless incompetence of the Jimmy Carter administration, the forced moderation of the Bill Clinton administration (thanks to the 1994 election tsunami that brought Republicans to power in both houses of Congress), and the tragically unspeakable mess of the current Barack Obama administration.
The Reagan-Bush years were a time of recovery. It’s still somewhat early to evaluate the Bush years unless one is a political hack or ideological foe rather than honest historian.
What I do know is nothing that has happened politically since 1972 has made me want to realign with the Democrat Party. This includes the Watergate foolishness that led to the resignation of Nixon and the election of Carter in 1976.
I have friends and family who are both fine people and Democrats. One doesn’t necessarily rule out the other. But I do wonder, if one is registered to the political party whose ideals are more Marxist/Stalinist than representative democracy/individual freedom, how does one square that with being an American? Just wondering.