There was a time, perhaps last in the mid-1960s, when this country had two viable political parties that represented two practical views of government. Both had many principles in common and both regularly were granted executive power from the voters.

Since that time one party, the Republicans, in its befuddled and often frustrating way, has continued to represent at least some semblance of a cogent set of ideals and practical political arrangements.

The Democrats, no longer an actual political party as we commonly understand the term, has devolved into a rabid alliance of grievance mongers more concerned with getting federal loot than they are in the welfare of the nation as a whole.

We won’t count the Libertarian Party, because really . . . who does?

The Democrats have achieved this status by cleverly exploiting the resentment and bitterness of groups that at one time had bona fide grievances with American society. To name two, blacks and women.

Of course, African Americans and women have gotten raw deals in the past. But it’s also the case that both groups have seen many unfair biases wither away, more as a result of gradual societal edification and maturation than of government intervention. That is not enough for the gripe groupies. It never could be.

They pursue a successful two-track strategy of crying oppression to keep up loyalty to the cause while at the same time encouraging their clients to believe in equality of result, which is an impossible goal. When parity of results fails to occur (because it’s impossible) this in turn further fuels the resentment and bitterness that alights the grievance engines and enriches its engineers.

The ironic part is the Democrats largely have been effective in securing for their charges many of the unethical thumb-on-the-scales perks they once decried as racism and sexism when they applied to white males as recently as a generation ago.

The main cases bear examination.

The Origins of the Grievance Industry

Nobody can say that life in America has been easy for African Americans. For that matter neither has it been for the Irish or the Jews (but that’s another column).

Brought here in chains, their treatment will forever be a deep dark blotter in America’s copybook. After 300,000 Union dead to pay part of that debt to justice, Southern Democrats, serving their post-Confederate racist clients, imposed another century of Jim Crow to exacerbate the problems they faced and continued to hold blacks in yet another form of bondage. Yet black Americans persevered and steadily chipped away at the edifice of bigotry.

By the early 20th century, their advancing standards of education, their service in uniform, and their intact and strong family units paved the way for the softening and eventual general sentiment that such irrational hatreds ought to end. The Harlem Renaissance, jazz, and other achievements made their sterling mark on America. African Americans showed, in no uncertain terms, that they are, in fact, Americans.

Then, lo and behold, the New Deal Democrats, inspired by FDR, assaulted Washington, discovered the potential vote bonanza to be exploited in the latent and justifiable resentment of blacks still seething over past and current injustice. The Democrats stoked that fire from the 1930s until the 1950s and ’60s when, thanks to typical GOP fumbling of the ball with a once-reliable voting group, the fire became a conflagration that consumed all empirical evidence against it.

The stable black family and economic self-respect were also swallowed by the maelstrom grievance that ignored and failed to reward the amazing progress black Americans had achieved for themselves when simply presented with a fair shake. Instead of encouraging blacks who were the agents of their own success, the government led by Democrats, sought to make them clients of the state and to make them feel as though any success they achieved incurred a debt of loyalty to Democratic politicians..

The growing economic renaissance among the black middle-class was ignored and a picture of never-ending poverty was promulgated because that could stir anger and angry voters are more motivated to show up to the polls to reward politicians promising retribution. As other Americans cast off the ignorance that inspired their bigotry, Democrats continued to pretend the entire nation was in danger of reverting to Mississippi circa 1955. They advocated the acceptance of an alternate universe, where the gains of Martin Luther King, Jr., and other legitimate civil rights leaders amounted to empty rhetoric.

This attitude rationalized policies that kept blacks and other minorities in a state of dependence on Democrats but at a cost for the country. In the end, it just substituted one virulent form of bigotry for the one it promised to eradicate. Black Lives Matter and the Klan are just two sides of the same coin.

The aggressive and petulant template was perfected and the grievance machine chugged along, turning a political party into a mere vehicle for exploitation of clients for votes.

How did Democrats pull this off? Well, hate is easy. Real advancement can be hard. Hate blames another. Success focuses on self-improvement and goals met.

Stoking Female Grievance

Women in America, though never quite bearing the weight of subjugation in the same way blacks did, faced significant hurdles to equal treatment under the law and economic opportunity.

The aesthetically pleasing Donna Reed aside, second wave feminist leaders such as Betty Friedan could strike a nerve with the country because they had a point. In pushing for cultural, legal, and economic equality of opportunity for women that allowed them to flourish as free citizens without irrational hurdles, there could be no serious opposition. Certainly by the 1980s, however, much of that agenda had already been brought to fruition.

Not good enough for arid third wave feminists and their Democratic patrons who now opine that the “patriarchy” is the devil to be resisted at all costs, lest women fall into the abject slavery of “The Handmaid’s Tale” come to life.

One does not require the eloquence of a Camille Paglia or a Jordan Peterson to shoot that argument down as easily as a grouse in early August. But then, the weaker sex was never really weak at all.

Do all women vote for that nonsense? Certainly not. Republicans regularly draw a majority of the female vote in statewide and national elections. In centers of cultural influence like newsrooms and faculty lounges, however, the Thought Police is hard at work to ensure conformity of mind and application, especially with young single women.

Advertising, marketing, and pop culture blare the feminine victimization trope as if it were a badge of honor, paying no heed to the myriad benefits women receive in education and the job market. To a lesser degree the same holds true of gays. It is hard to claim social oppression when you’re getting standing ovations at the Tony Awards.

That said, we should give the Democratic Party the cynical credit it is due. Unlike other more gullible citizens, it recognizes the fallen state of man not so much as a theological concept, but as a cow to be milked for their benefit. Democrats understand that in all groups and in all places at all times, there will be those who curse the darkness and refuse to recognize the noonday sun.

As long as there are such among us willing to be exploited in this way, there will be modern Democrats and their fellow travelers to take full advantage of them and their willingness to be serfs in exchange for “revenge.” Democrats don’t advance this system as a political party in the traditional American sense, though they appear on ballots as such. They achieve their victories as a collector of absurd malcontents, a harvester of make believe ills, appealing always to the lowest common denominator in mankind: that of spite.

That’s not a political party. It’s a long-term tantrum.

To end this tyranny over the human spirit, they must be fought as aggressively as they are willing to fight us in the twilight struggle that is the price of liberty.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

