It occurred a number of years ago on a late spring day walking up Broadway on the upper West Side of New York City. There was no context, and the idea sprung fully formed: I was the enemy; the hard Left hated me. In this instance “I” and “me” were synecdoches for all straight, white, Caucasian, Christian, southern males. In the years since, progressives have generously expanded their definition of the damned; “flyover” can now be substituted for “Southern,” and Jews have been herded into the free-fire zone.
Amusement was the chief emotion accompanying that realization, largely because it struck me as funny that where I came from, people simply had no idea how much antipathy they engendered. Additionally, that part of the Democrat Party that was enraged beyond reason was small and confined to a limited geographic space. However, I realized that beneath the humor of the famous New Yorker cartoon depicting New York City relative to the tiny country west of the Hudson River, there was an incalculable enmity.
Still long ago, but within 10 years of that awakening, any humor associated with the epiphany had drained: A dangerous Left was vocal and ascendant. I was visiting a boyhood friend and opined “We’re going to have to fight these people one day. They hate our God, our guns, capitalism, and they hate us.” At the time, he thought the idea silly, beyond consideration. In time, he would come to marvel at my prescience.
Marxists-socialists have commandeered the Democratic Party. They do not believe in the nation’s founding principles rooted in natural rights. This is not hyperbole; these people have announced themselves. There is no common ground to be had between free market capitalism/individual liberty and socialism/communism. There is either a democratic republic, or there is top-down command structure run by statist bureaucrats in which coercion rules and to disobey is to be silenced or jailed. For the latter to gain power they must first divide us; in pursuit of this, violence is a feature, not a bug. This is where we presently find ourselves.
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, there is considerable fear of reprisal from the Right. This fear is evidenced in the concern expressed by public figures on both sides of the political aisle. Pundits are using phrases such as “inflection point” or “on the precipice”; these are euphemisms for the tragic likelihood of more political murder leading to an eruption of unimaginable violence. No matter calls to “turn down the temperature” or “cool the rhetoric,” this is exactly the moment and time in which we stand. The more honest -- if indecent -- voices of the Left know it, and they don’t want to back down.
Which brings us to Dan Turrentine.
Turrentine is the left side to Sean Spicer’s right on Mark Halperin’s indispensable show, The Morning Meeting; we disagree on most things, but he’s an honorable man and a person who obviously loves the country. The first comp that comes to mind is Hubert Humphrey.
Truth be told, I don’t care if it’s Turrentine or PA’s senator, John Fetterman, or whatever sane voice is left in the Democrat Party; it’s simply that Turrentine is a reasonable, amicable, and intelligent fellow; he has a platform and would command a following. However, my personal choice notwithstanding, the wished-for candidate must demonstrably and unequivocally reject the cesspool Left and all its rancid weeds: DEI, TDS, trans insanity, open borders… this will lead to his losing in the primary -- which is informative of the present state of the Democratic Party -- but that’s when renewal begins.
Turrentine must then run third party. He would get all the remaining non-lunatic Dem voters, as well as some number of former Dems who became Trump supporters. This number will not be inconsiderable, leading to Dems being trounced nationwide.
We need a healthy Democratic Party, and its regeneration will occur only if the present rotting hulk is razed to the ground. Initially, many Democrats will revile Dan, but soon enough, politicians being what they are, Republicans will overreach politically and some will prove corrupt; Dems will once again have their hands on the levers of power, with the new incarnation being a party Hubert Humphrey would recognize and be proud of. In time, historians and his countrymen would see Dan as a courageous and visionary hero.
Lest anyone find humor in my plea, understand that I think it extremely likely that, were he to run, someone would try and kill Dan Turrentine. Let me state that again: Were Dan Turrentine to run for president, someone would attempt to murder him. That assassin would come from the Left, because the threat to the “movement” would be too great. That is the kind of evil danger in which the nation finds itself. Charlie Kirk recognized this and gave his life trying to head off disaster. We need a few saviors, Dan. Might you be one of them?
KH Cutts spent his adult life in show business in New York City.