Republicans Swapped Dick Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for Robert Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard and stole the Classical Liberalism Vote
The reverberations from the 2024 election have just begun, but there is a glaring reality that will continue to haunt the Democrat party for years to come.
They are no longer the party of classic liberalism.
Right under their noses, Republicans stole the key issues that fueled Democrats to a seemingly institutional control over federal elections for decades. Dems held the House of Representatives for 58 out of 62 years, spanning 1933-1995. Over the same period, they controlled the Senate 52 out of 62 years.
Why did Democrats maintain such an iron grip on American government for so long?
It was because of their embrace of classical liberalism.
Understanding Classical Liberalism
At its core, classical liberalism is centered around individual freedom and liberty and a belief that government is essential in performing services the private sector is unable or unwilling to provide. This belief is manifested in areas like government administered law enforcement, national security, transportation, etc.
Throughout modern American history, liberals were at the forefront of the civil rights, environmentalist, and women’s rights movements. In modern culture, it’s universally accepted that providing minorities and women with equal opportunities benefits all of society, and protecting our fragile environment is paramount for our quality of life and the survival of our species.
We might have fought against the Democrats constant overreach, but prior to the 21st century, we never questioned their patriotism.
While the debate regarding the scope and degree of influence the government should have in shaping policy continued through decades, there was one guiding premise that bound both political parties together. That was a fundamental belief in the Constitution, which created a set of ground rules both sides agreed to abide by. At the center of those rules was the explicit endorsement of the Bill of Rights and the principle of free speech.
Throughout the history of the United States, liberal organizations staunchly defended the rights of Americans to express themselves under the first amendment. Here are just a few of the important cases the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a legal bastion of classical liberalism, litigated on behalf of the First Amendment.
1927: Whitney vs California: Justice Brandeis laid the groundwork for modern First Amendment law in a separate opinion, in which he argued that under a “clear and present danger” test, the strong presumption should be in favor of “more speech, not enforced silence.”
1931: Stromberg v. California: A California law leading to the conviction of a communist who displayed a red flag was overturned on the grounds that the law was vague, in violation of the First Amendment.
1949: In this exoneration of a priest convicted of disorderly conduct for giving a racist, anti-Semitic speech, Justice William O. Douglas stated, “the function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute.”
1968: Epperson v. Arkansas: Arkansas’ ban on teaching “that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals” was a violation of the First Amendment, which forbids official religion.
1969: Tinker v. Des Moines: Suspending public school students for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War was ruled unconstitutional since students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the school-house gate.
1978: Smith v. Collin: A Nazi group wanted to rally through a Chicago suburb, Skokie, where many Holocaust survivors lived. The ACLU’s controversial challenge to the village’s ban on the rally was ultimately successful.
Do you notice a common thread through all those cases?
The ACLU and other liberal First Amendment advocacy groups defended the principle of free speech regardless of the political ideology of the plaintiff.
Remember, the ACLU defended American Nazis marching through Skokie, Illinois in 1970s, which at that point had a population that was over half Jewish. One could not imagine an organization the ACLU would have found more morally repugnant than American Nazis, but they recognized that the principle of free speech was far more important than political ideology.
Woke Leftists Subvert Classic Liberalism
Somewhere between Bill Clinton and Kamala Harris, Democrats lost their way, and the culmination of the process resulted in the election of Donald Trump and the erosion of their base of voters who believed in classical liberalism.
In 2016, Trump’s campaign was largely centered on a repudiation of the Republican party and the globalist, neocon cabal that had done so much damage to the country economically, culturally and morally. If you will recall, Trump won that election by employing a brilliant strategy that focused on winning the electoral college. Ultimately, he garnered 306 electoral votes to 232 for Hillary Clinton, but… he lost the popular vote 65.8 million to 62.9 million.
However, in 2024, with the Republican party rebuilt to reflect Trump’s world views and America First philosophy, he turned his sights on demolishing the Democrat party by focusing on their massive vulnerabilities. Taking his argument to the entire nation, Trump not only won the electoral college in 2024 (312-226), but he also won the popular vote by nearly five million votes (70.6 million to 66 million). Additionally, Republicans gained control of both the House and Senate.
So, why was the election a Republican landslide?
In the new woke leftist Democrat party, free speech isn’t absolute. Sometime during the Obama administration, the left began to advocate for limits on free speech, especially in cases that involved so called “hate speech” or “disinformation.” UC Davis philosopher and legal scholar Mark Reiff put it this way:
There’s a difference between saying something that is reasonably mistaken but harmless and saying something that is wildly implausible and dangerous, like claiming that Hillary Clinton is running a pedophile ring out of the basement of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria.
Modern leftists believe that hate speech and disinformation can be used to create division and loathing in our society, thus undermining democracy. This belief manifested itself in severe censorship of viewpoints that opposed the leftist doctrine on the major social media platforms like Twitter (now X), Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, as well as search platforms like Google and Bing.
This limited view of free speech was parroted by Hillary Clinton, who said, “Tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism with no accountability.” Even vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, who was a complete dud, believes “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”
Swapping Neocons for Classic Liberals
It’s hard to pinpoint when it happened, but the Democratic party morphed into an entity that now advocates for every policy mainstream America has come to despise.
Remarkably, Democrats are now the party of forever wars, as evidenced by the two-year-old proxy war in Ukraine that has cost $200 billion and is unwinnable. They have banned opposition speakers on college campuses, pushed insane gender policies, forced girls to accept boys on their sports teams, limited consumer choice and cozied up to the big money ruling elite. Most importantly, every decision or policy they advocate is based on the premise that America is evil.
You’ve heard grumblings about this authoritarian evolution for some time among longstanding classical liberals like Bill Maher, who has become increasingly critical of the left and woke policies in particular.
This growing uneasiness with the direction of the party finally reached critical mass when left of center, high profile Democrat leaders like Robert Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, Joe Rogan and Tulsi Gabbard all announced they were supporting Trump.
And in return?
Kamala Harris picked up endorsements from discredited, irrelevant neocon globalists like Dick Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and Jeff Flake.
It’s a trade I’ll take any time.
If the new Republican party continues to promote free speech, full government disclosure, war only when protecting the homeland, limited but effective government and an emphasis on creating an environment where working families thrive, you’ll see a lot more Democrat defections in the coming years.
The Democrat party is untenable in its current form, and they are at the crossroads. Either they revert back to their classic liberal roots and abandoned the “hate America,” authoritarian attitude, or they will become increasingly irrelevant.
