Democrats keep getting more strident in staking out unpopular positions on just about everything. Given their unpopularity, one would think they’d moderate to woo voters, but they don’t.
Why not? Well, they can’t.
If you’re older than about 30, you remember a time when most Americans had the same understanding of the natural world, somewhat similar values, and a certain level of patriotism—and this is despite the growth of the state over the 20th century.
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However, over the last 20 years, we’ve gone from political differences still anchored in a few common ideas to worldviews so dramatically different that there is no room for consensus—and the new Democrat positions are too extreme to change.
Take the transgender issue. Americans used to understand that men are men and women are women. The women’s rights movement addressed the role women would play in society, but didn’t change that fundamental premise. Where things went off the rails was when the leftists who now control the Democrat party got hold of things.
They started by contending that men and women weren’t equal but that women were better than men. From there, they claimed that women and men were actually interchangeable, except when women were better than men. They then went on to claim that there was no such thing as women and men; there are just people who choose to be a woman or a man (except women are still naturally superior, even if you don’t know what they are).
This new take on men and women got grafted onto the homosexual rights movement, but it really stands alone. It is a complete refutation of biological reality, human history, and the Bible. Moreover, because it insists upon a new reality untethered to biology, culture, or religion, once you’ve embraced it, there’s no walking back. You cannot moderate this position, just as you cannot moderate a position that staunchly insists that the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. There is no compromise.
Leftists did the same with immigration. The debate in America used to be how many immigrants would best serve American interests. Then, when immigrants stopped coming from Europe, which had a shared culture with America, and started coming from Asia, Africa, and Latin America—all regions that not only had people with different skin colors but also markedly different values—the debate also encompassed how much one should encourage immigrants from those regions. Compromise and moderation were possible.
In the 21st Century, though, Democrats changed the terms of the debate. The new theory is that borders are inherently evil. They shifted the discussion from how many people we should bring to America to the claim that America should not exist as a nation with borders, but rather be a geographical entity that absorbs everyone. It’s no longer about having a homogeneous nation, built on a unified American culture; it’s about a homogeneous world, built on a one-world culture.
It’s irrelevant to leftists that conquering cultures (i.e., Islam and China) exploit this approach to immigration. The policy is fixed on the Democrat side of the aisle. And again, you cannot moderate your position on a policy that says that both borders and America are inherently evil. It’s no longer a question of how many immigrants or what should happen when they arrive. It is, instead, an embrace of an endless influx of everyone.
Democrats have also changed their view on Jews, turning on its head the American narrative. The Founders, especially Washington, famously respected Jews. From the 1820s to the 1880s, German Jews immigrated to America in large numbers, with minimal pushback. They were educated, Biblical in their values, hard working, and law-abiding. There was always going to be antisemitism, but it wasn’t a big deal.
When a huge influx of Jews started coming in from Eastern Europe in response to the Russian Empire’s pogroms, there were questions about the number and concerns about what they’d do to America. The response was to push assimilation (which applied to all Southern and Eastern European immigrants).
Meanwhile, the Jews, denied access to old-time institutions such as the Ivy League or Wall Street banking, started their own institutions and made them so good that, eventually, the rest of the world wanted in on them. Wildly antisemitic Democrats such as Father Coughlin and the KKK ultimately did not hold sway in America.
Then, after WWII and the Holocaust, when Americans saw the hideous fruits of antisemitism, America turned its back on cultural antisemitism. Also, both Democrats and Republicans strongly supported the new Nation of Israel.
That was the American norm. However, beginning in 1967, when the Soviet Union turned on Israel, leftists have become increasingly hostile to it. In the last few years, they have identified it as a nation “worse than Hitler.” This is lunacy. Whether or not one likes Jews or Israel, a tiny nation that gives full civil rights to all residents, regardless of race, sex, color, creed, or sexual orientation, and that fought a war with the lowest civilian casualty rate in history, is not “worse than Hitler.”
But having defined Israel that way, the left has nowhere to go. You cannot renounce your screaming demand for Israel’s annihilation by saying, “Well, a little genocide is okay.” Once again, Democrats have boxed themselves into an ideological corner from which there is no return.
You can go through this on issue after issue. Abortion was once supposed to be “safe, legal, and rare.” Now, Democrats insist that it’s something that’s virtuous to spare the planet, and that it’s righteous up until the moment of birth. How do you back down from that one?
On race, Americans finally embraced a core moral truth: people should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Modern Democrats, though, proclaim that skin color defines character. That’s not a position that can be moderated either.
Given the Democrats’ positions, all of which cannot be moderated, the only thing left is a brute force battle of values, with one side or another prevailing. And the only way for that to happen without bloodshed is for conservatives, independents, and other sane Americans to vote Democrats out of every office, in every election, including midterms. They need to be reduced to an inconsequential rump without a following. Otherwise, what’s happening in Portland, Chicago, and other Democrat redoubts will be coming soon to a neighborhood near you.