E pluribus unum – “Out of many, one” the motto of the United States
The United States of America is the only country in the history of the world to be founded upon a philosophical construct. That construct is to be found in the immortal Declaration of Independence, quoted here:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed…”
The Continental Congress, that duly elected body which passed and signed this Declaration, waged a war of rebellion against their lawful King, winning that war and establishing a new government based upon the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence.
As time went on, the original Articles of Confederation proved to be unsuited to the fledgling United States, so the leading thinkers of early America gathered in Philadelphia to pen the Constitution – a remarkable document that established a limited but more powerful national government based on the principles of the Declaration. That document, while amended and weakened over the intervening centuries is still the governing law of the country today.
America is a nation of immigrants. From the first adventurers who founded the colonies on the eastern seaboard to the millions who came here in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, we are truly a “melting pot” of people from all over the world. My ancestors came to America legally in the late 19th century, immigrating from Sweden and the United Kingdom and settling in Cleveland and Chicago.
Waves of immigrants came from Ireland, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands. More came from other parts of the world. Most of them came here legally, through established channels. Many came through Ellis Island in New York, with the Statue of Liberty among their first impressions of the new country.
My understanding of history is that most immigrants came to America for religious and political freedom, to escape old ways and because America was a golden land of opportunity where a shoe-shine boy could rise to become a millionaire. In America, we don’t have entrenched social classes like England and other European countries do. We don’t have royalty.
We are sovereign citizens, not “subjects”.
Those immigrants came to a country without a social safety net, where you had to work to support yourself and your family. People understood that they were responsible for their own lives, and people who needed help looked to their extended families, their churches and other associations like ethnic groups. While people tended to live in neighborhoods by ethnicity, they became Americans first. They pushed their children to learn English instead of demanding that we adopt their language. They embraced being American. And while most ethnic groups retained the pride of their origins, they were unquestionably proud to be Americans, worked hard to assimilate to American culture, and pushed their children to do so too.
These are the people whose children fought the Civil War to end the atrocity of slavery. Their children enlisted and fought in Europe in World War One to “end all wars”. Their children became “The Greatest Generation” and fought another World War to defeat National Socialism. And their children became the Baby Boom generation who took America to the moon and built the greatest country in the history of the world.
Immigrants in the early days of America were not coming here looking for a handout, or “free” health care, or other “free” stuff, because that did not exist. The federal government was still mostly within the constitutional bounds set by the Founders, and the “protestant work ethic” ruled the land.
People today still want to come to America, because America still is the land of opportunity. But they also want to come here to take advantage of government largesse – put in place by the Democrat party to pander for votes. Some come here because they want to commit crimes, and many of them do. Some come here because they are fleeing tyranny, injustice, poor economic performance and other problems in their home countries. And some, I suspect, are coming here with evil intent. The next terrorist attack on American soil won’t be fanatics flying airplanes into buildings.
I get it. Even in decline, America is still a great country.
While many people primarily identify as being from a particular state (though I, a native Coloradan who has lived in six states do not), all of us for most of our history have identified ourselves as “Americans”. And as Americans, we all have (or had) something in common: the core beliefs upon which this country was founded.
Enter the Democrat Party
A (very) brief history of the Democrat Party is in order here. Just as America today is dealing with the repercussions of the evil of human slavery, America in the early 19th century was dealing with the politics of the expansion or containment of slavery.
These paragraphs from A Patriot’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen (an excellent book I highly recommend) describe the reasons behind the formation of the Democratic Party.
“Southern prospects for perpetuating slavery depended on maintaining a grip on the levers of power at the federal level. But the South had already lost the House of Representatives. Southerners could count on the votes of enough border states to ensure that no abolition bill could be passed, but little else. Power in the Senate, meanwhile, had started to shift, and with each new state receiving two senators, it would only take a few more states from the northern section of the Louisiana Purchase to tilt the balance forever against the South in the upper chamber…Finally, the South had to hold on to the presidency…But the courts troubled slave owners, especially when it came to retrieving runaways, which was nearly impossible. The best strategy for controlling the courts was to control the appointment of judges, through a proslavery president and Senate.
Still, the ability of the nonslave states to outvote the South and its border allies would only grow. Anyone politically astute could foresee a time in the not-distant future when not only would both houses of Congress have northern/antislave majorities, but the South would also lack the electoral clout to guarantee a proslavery president…
These issues combined with the election of 1824 to lead to the creation of the modern two-party system and the founding of the Democratic Party. The father of the modern Democratic Party, without question, was Martin Van Buren…”1
Martin Van Buren also promoted “universal” suffrage and “…learned to employ newspapers as no other political figure had, linking journalists’ success to the fortunes of the party. Above all, Van Buren perceived the necessity of discipline and organization, which he viewed as beneficial to the masses he sought to organize.” 1 [Emphasis mine]
Van Buren, the son of a New York tavernkeeper, “…resented the aristocratic landowning families…” 1
In other words, the founder of the Democratic Party was driven by envy, he knew the power of controlling the media of the day, he wanted to expand voting rights, he was a “community organizer” and he believed in enforcing party discipline. Sound familiar?
So there is no doubt in anyone’s mind, the Democratic Party was formed to control the federal government and protect human slavery in the antebellum South.
Many, if not most, of the dark things in American history so hated by today’s Left can be attributed to or happened when the Democratic Party was in power.
Andrew Jackson, considered to be the first Democratic president, was the 7th president of the United States. A colorful figure and accomplished military man, he was the embodiment of the values of the era. And as such, he was president when the United States government favored a policy of expansion and removal of Native Americans from the lands that they once held. Andrew Jackson (D) presided over the forceful relocation of Indian tribes from the eastern seaboard to places further west (including my new state of Oklahoma, of which half is considered to be “Indian country”). He was president when the “Trail of Tears” happened.
As the 19th century progressed, the Democratic Party took hold of the South. On the eve of the Civil War, every single one of the eleven states that seceded to form the Confederate States of America was controlled by the Democratic Party. The exception was Maryland, which was controlled by the Democrats sharing control with the “Know-Nothing” party. (A great name for a political party if there ever was one!)
As we all know, Abraham Lincoln of the newly formed Republican party won the election of 1860. As we’ve seen since, when the Democrats didn’t like the results of an election, they refuse to accept it. Here, instead of election denial, they just voted to secede and form their own country. And let’s be clear: the reason they did this was to preserve their economy which was based on the abomination of human slavery.
After they lost the Civil War and Reconstruction was over, Democrats regained control of the southern states. And what did they do next? They implemented the “separate but equal” practices that were meant to segregate the races and enacted the co-called “Jim Crow” laws that were intended to oppress people of African American origin. (These laws derived their name from the fact that “Jim Crow” was a pejorative term for African Americans at the time.)
The Democratic Party opposed giving women the right to vote. As author Katie Pavlich notes in her book Assault and Flattery: The Truth about the Left and Their War on Women (another must-read), “It was the Republican Party that made possible the passage of the constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote, as well as the anti-discrimination laws of the 1960s protecting women and minorities.” 2  She also notes that the first black man elected to Congress, Hiram Revels, was opposed by Democrats. “As soon as his credentials were read, southern Democratic senators objected to his nomination, arguing that, as of 1870, Revels had only been an American citizen for two years. The Fourteenth Amendment giving former slaves the full rights of citizenship – which Democrats had opposed in any way they could – had only been passed in 1868…” 2 3
In fact, the first woman elected to Congress was a Republican as well. Pavlich goes on to note in her book how Democrats – always masters of misinformation and rewriting of history – have whitewashed their own history and placed the blame for those evils on…wait for it…Republicans. Democrats opposed women’s suffrage and civil rights for minorities until it became politically expedient for them to support those things.
I think it is richly ironic that so many female and black Democrats today seem to be totally ignorant of the history of their own party.
Democrats have been intent on growing the size and scope of the federal government since the mid 1800s. Woodrow Wilson (D) became a virtual dictator upon America’s entrance into World War One, suppressing the press and ruthlessly quashing dissent.
The G.O.A.T. of growing the federal government was Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D). Taking office in 1933 in the depths of the Great Depression, his vast expansion of the federal government through the implementation of Social Security, a veritable alphabet soup of programs and agencies, and control of Congress laid the groundwork for what was to come.
In the 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson (D) grew the federal government even further through the implementation of his Great Society programs. For more on this topic, I recommend Great Society: A New History by Amity Shlaes.
By Any Means Necessary
Four years ago, I wrote an essay called By Any Means Necessary. In this essay I wrote these words: “…we are living in dangerous times. There is a movement in the United States and the world at large called “progressivism”. This ideology has socialist theory as its underpinning, wild, unrealistic goals as its agenda, with children and septuagenarians as its idols and thought leaders. These people are NOT content to “live and let live”. They actually believe that they know what is best for society and – by extension – YOU, your children, your business, your community, your state and your nation.
“Modern American progressivism has its roots in the shattered nation that emerged from the Civil War and Reconstruction in the late 19th century. Early progressives believed in science and education, and they believed that the best people to run society were not our elected officials, but trained and educated administrators. It is this belief that gave rise to the modern administrative/regulatory state we have today.
“Early progressives were believers in racial differences, eugenics, and other now discredited social theories. The progressives of the 1920s and 1930s were enthusiastic supporters of the Soviet Union, led by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin; fascist Italy, led by socialist Benito Mussolini;  and National Socialist Germany, led by Adolf Hitler. Even today, we can find apologists for communist dictators ranging from Stalin to Fidel Castro.”4 And, I might add, support for the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israel and the Jewish people on October 7, 2023 is strong among the Left as well.
I also talked about how the modern Left will use any means necessary to gain and maintain political power at the local, state and national levels. Part of their strategy is identity politics.
Instead of celebrating the unity of American culture and how “all men are created equal” they seek to divide us up into many different categories based on race and ethnicity, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, economic status, and more. They place value on people depending on where they fit into their intersectional hierarchy.
By dividing us, it is easier for them to pander to groups of voters to get their votes and maintain political power. It’s really that simple.
By pitting us one against the other, they distract us, they foment hostility between groups of people, and they devalue and degrade the American ideal.
Exactly Wrong
By now, it should be no surprise that I’m going to ask you to vote all Democrats out of office this coming November. They are – and there is real-world, objective proof of this – exactly wrong on every issue facing America today. They are the party of socialism and misery and death. Let’s stand for our modern life and for the America of the Declaration of Independence.
By Richard D. Turnquist
February 15. 2024
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1 Schweikart, Larry and Allen, Michael (2004) A Patriot’s History of the United States – From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror. Sentinel, page 197
2 Pavlich, Katie (2014) Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women. Threshold Editions, pages 49-50
3 In another historical irony, this is the same Fourteenth Amendment that the Democrats today are using to try to keep Donald Trump off the ballot.
4 Turnquist, Richard By Any Means Necessary https://kimmonson.com/featured_articles/by-any-means-necessary/
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