By Gary Wickert

In the wake of another glorious Independence Day celebration throughout America's heartland, it is appropriate to note how badly political correctness and the anti- American insanity of the far Left has decimated the Democratic Party and left it confused, angry, and directionless. When the Democratic Party "float" and one of Scott Walker's political opponents walked by in the Cedarburg Independence Day parade, the silence was more out of pity than politics. The once proud Party of JFK is so directionless that another defeat in 2020 might even help the Party.

My parents were once both proud Democrats, but the Party left them many years ago. As a boy I recall the leader of the Democratic Party was a suave, young Catholic who cut taxes, favored free trade, invaded Cuba, called abortion repugnant, built up the military, reformed welfare, fought government expansion, and spoke about "Christian morality." He criticized the growing intellectual elitism and anti-Americanism within our universities, spoke of the job-creating value of the fossil fuel industry, and took a hard slap at the growing welfare state with "Ask not what your country can do for you." He was tough on unions, was a fiscal conservative, supported the death penalty, and appointed two justices to the Supreme Court who both opposed Roe v. Wade.

Today's Democratic Party wouldn't even be recognized by the most liberal of its members just a few short years ago. Aside from being anti-Trump, nobody seems to know what the Party stands for. They praise "diversity" but have no tolerance for divergent opinions. They believe in the abolition of uniquely- American institutions, erasing American history and iconography, taxpayer-funded abortions, an ever-increasing minimum wage, 911 conspiracy theories, and jailing climate change skeptics. The inmates have taken over the asylum, and the Party of JFK is known today for kneeling during the National Anthem, taxpayer-funded abortion, class and race warfare, the abolition of prisons, runaway political correctness, identity politics, tearing down statues of Christopher Columbus and George Washington, lifetime employment, the abolition of ICE, unisex toilets, gender confusion, gay marriage (when civil unions would do), open borders, and social welfare policies that have all but destroyed the black family. An astonishing 42% of Democrats favor socialism. Polemicists, conspiracists, and outright fabulists in the Party feed an alternative media reality—where the more implausible a claim the more it is accepted. Modern Democrats like Maxine Waters and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez call for harassing Republicans at their homes, the occupation of airports, and mob violence against those who disagree with them. Criticism of these morons is met with worn-out cries of racism—a word that has become meaningless and irrelevant thanks to the far left. Today's Democratic Party has devolved into a strange concoction of groups which, at least on the surface, have nothing in common. What enables this party of ideological ragtags to hold itself together is the ability to service their special-interest constituencies with benefits, preferential treatment, lifestyle validation, alleviation from guilt, ideological succor and money taken from other Americans. Philosophically, the secret sauce which holds these diverse fringe groups together is a toxic airborne phenomenon known as victimology. Everyone except white males is a victim. Criminals, addicts, illegal aliens, the obese, smokers, women, gays, gang members, transsexuals, terrorists, any race or ethnic group you can think of are all victims and entitled to special status and/or some sort of reparations.

To paraphrase the Bard, it is a philosophy of life that says the fault lies not in ourselves but in the stars. To far too many on the left there is no grand design or purpose to the universe because life itself is nothing more than an accident and Sin and guilt are burdens they shouldn't be saddled with. Because the Democratic vision is inconsistent with religious faith, liberals work assiduously to censor religious expression and substitute the religion of the State for that of the Creator. With the exception of African-Americans, most Democrats have become fervently secular, condescendingly rolling their eyes when faith enters the conversation.

Worst of all, the Left has become anti-American. This new anti-Americanism isn’t the Bolshevik menace crawling out its historical grave. Despite the histrionics of The New York Times and CNN, Putin’s Russia has none of the reach of the old KGB and Trump Derangement Syndrome has hit epidemic levels. Today's anti-Americanism is a creation of one of the Left's biggest proponents—higher education. The majority of the humanities and social science faculty members, most of its administrative staff, and probably the great majority of its college presidents, have all made it their enlightened vision to indoctrinate our children in a new social and political order forged in reactionary hatred of the political, economic, and social freedom that is America. Look what has happened to Marquette University. It is impossible for the liberal media and leftist activists to even accept that Donald Trump is our president and every word he tweets triggers literal insanity, exposing how anti-American much of the Left truly is. The fate of the Democratic Party may be left to the feckless dithering of militant university professors and underemployed social media pundits. Once in control of the national narrative via the "big three" nightly news organizations and a handful of big newspapers, Democrats have had a hard time adjusting to the public’s plummeting faith in and attention to traditional media. What is left of the Party survives today thanks to the enduring quality of unchecked emotion, hyper-partisan Facebook pages, Twitter conspiracists, government unions, YouTube vloggers, angry deviants, and socialist message boards. The face of the Party today is about as tired and joyless as its endless cries of victimhood and phantom racism. As we look back over the course of human history and contemplate the fate of American institutions, their rise and fall, we encounter twists and turns of triumph and disaster that only God can explain. The ultimate fate of the Democratic Party will surely be among them.