Embarrassed

As a child of the depression and a man who had to give up his dream of college to help support a single mother and 5 siblings during the great depression, my father sang the praises of FDR. He almost always voted Democratic because of FDR. Yet, he was a firm believer in personal responsibility and would never even consider accepting a handout from the State.

Throughout my life, I have voted for far more Democrats than Republicans, but like many of us in the Center, I have watched as the Democratic party under the 'leadership' of Barack Obama has veered to the extreme Left. Today, the Dems are the champions of big intrusive government (B.I.G.), uncontrolled federal spending, unremitting class warfare, divisive political rhetoric, and a foreign policy that is a cross between incompetent and isolationist.

Today, I watch in amazement as the Dems provide us with an "inevitable" presidential candidate that is clearly corrupt, stretches the letter and spirit of the law in ways that are at least unethical and more likely criminal, operates in secrecy, refuses to answer media questions about a variety of key issues (not to mention a long list of potential scandals) and was responsible for a disastrous four years of foreign policy blunders and embarrassments.

Parroting the Obama administration's approach to governance, the Democrat's "inevitable" presidential candidate gives every indication that she will be a champion of big intrusive government (B.I.G.), uncontrolled federal spending, unremitting class warfare, divisive political rhetoric, and a foreign policy that is a cross between incompetent and isolationist. It's deja vu all over again.

Peter Alberice comments:

Under Obama, divisiveness and the politics of envy overrode the unity and a sense of purpose under JFK that the party once stood for. “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” has been replaced by “You didn’t build that.”

“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man” has become “leading from behind.”

The Democratic Party will continue to champion divisiveness through single-issue political infighting, a failed progressive economic agenda, and an almost nonexistent foreign policy. The party that once stood with our allies abroad and supported robust economic growth has been replaced by whiny radical feminism and an overwrought sense of entitlement.

Mattress Girl and Pajama Boy are the new Democratic Party; Truman and Kennedy would be embarrassed.

The Democratic party that my father supported is gone forever, replaced by a rudderless conglomeration of politicians who are excellent demagogues but pathetically incompetent leaders. The blue model that they enthusiastically support may have been created with the best of intentions, but the result is abject failure.

Worse, the failure goes unrecognized. Instead of adapting the model to new realities, it is tried over and over again, with the same negative results. The rhetoric remains the same and the results, sadly, do too. More spending, more debt, more dependency across broad segments of the population, more failed cities (think Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles), more (not less) racial division, higher (not lower) medical costs, unrelenting growth of the public sector, denigration of those who create jobs.

The Democratic Party of 2015 needs to reassess its objectives and decide whether a party that produced FDR, JFK and Harry Truman should continue to take its lead from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.