Our Republic was still young when the Democratic Party, then the favorite party of the American South, gave rise to the Confederacy, which, in turn, forced America into one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history. It did so by tolerating and running interference for something that even the Founders argued against but failed to rule on: the practice of slavery in America. Today, the Democratic Party is once again tearing at the fabric of the American Republic—this time by supporting the Palestinian cause, which does not and never will comport with America values and interests, primarily because that cause, being a joint Marxist-Islamist invention, is bound-up with a desire to not just bring about Israel’s destruction or gradual erasure, but America’s as well.
Just as Democrats once manufactured the issue of states’ rights to justify their desire to maintain slavery in the face of a changing national-moral landscape, Democrats are now echoing anti-Israel propaganda in a rush to justify policies that leave America and her allies less safe, but help Democrats build political capital with those who give lip service to a ceasefire in Gaza, but whose true goals are the end of the US-Israel alliance and the destruction of the Jewish state. Biden doubled-down on his administration’s pandering to the Islamist-Marxist alliance when he closed the first evening of the Democratic National Convention by saying that protesters who were calling for an end to the U.S.-Israel alliance “have a point.” This came after Biden threatened to withhold all weapons from Israel should she pursue Hamas into Rafah and quickly rescue the hostages that were known to be there. When that threat was issued, six hostages, one of whom was an American citizen, were still alive.
When anti-Israel protesters targeted past Democratic administrations, one could expect any of those administrations to affirm its commitment to the U.S.-Israel alliance while using terms such as “ironclad.” However, today’s Democratic Party falls in line behind its President when he suspends the shipment of heavy munitions to Israel midway through her battle with Hamas for control of Gaza while knowing full well that those munitions were needed to sever and destroy Hamas’ underground tunnel and bunker system. It was from those tunnels and bunkers that thousands of Israeli civilians were attacked on October 7th and it was into those tunnels and bunkers that the hostages were taken. The Biden-Harris administration withheld those weapons not because Israel was failing to wage war in accordance with international humanitarian law, but because arming Israel against Hamas had become unpopular with an influential segment of the Democratic Party, a segment that had just promised to withdraw all support for whomever the party nominates to run in November unless the Biden-Harris administration ends all military aid to Israel forthwith and accomplishes a ceasefire, which is code for “rescue Hamas from total defeat and allow it hold onto some form of power in Gaza.”
As a society, we will either continue to tolerate and eventually conform to the nihilism of those who are protesting on behalf of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Ayatollah and be destroyed by it or we will overcome that nihilism.
When Lincoln faced similar pressure from those who wished to appease the South and ignore the injustice of slavery, he said this: “A house divided against itself cannot stand…I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.” America is faced with the same choice now. That choice is to either tolerate those who would legitimize and give a lifeline to a terrorist organization that live-streamed the murders and kidnappings it committed on October 7th or to heed Lincoln’s words and realize that we cannot be two things at once. Truly, a house divided cannot stand. As a society, we will either continue to tolerate and eventually conform to the nihilism of those who are protesting on behalf of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Ayatollah and be destroyed by it or we will overcome that nihilism. Not by ignoring it or viewing it as a passing political fashion, but by purging it from the American body politic while reclaiming values that G-d writes on every human heart, but that some, in their cleverness and anger, graffiti over.
By placing too much stock in its “big tent” strategy and admitting undeniably anti-American actors to its inner-circle, the Democratic Party is incubating something worse than the Confederates. Worse because the Confederates did not wish destruction upon America so much as they believed that the Constitution guaranteed them a right to secede. Had the Confederates won the argument over secession, the great injustice that is chattel slavery in America would have continued and the Confederates would have done what they could to reconcile with the Union. In other words, America would have gone on. Slavery would have also gone on, but not indefinitely.
By placing too much stock in its “big tent” strategy and admitting undeniably anti-American actors to its inner-circle, the Democratic Party is incubating something worse than the Confederates.
If some in the Democratic Party get their way now, our centuries-long pursuit of ‘a more perfect union’ and belief in our own exceptionalism will be replaced by an ethos that rejects that exceptionalism in favor of a world without borders and the ideas those borders contain and protect. Just as slavery was once promoted by the American South, the rejection of American exceptionalism is now being spread by a Democratic Party that views American power and influence as proof of imperialist intent only. Hence its steady and continuous efforts to destroy both since 2008, when then President Obama promised to reform American foreign policy toward the Middle East while transferring more responsibility for maintaining global stability to the UNSC, which has only ever functioned well under strong American leadership. Those reforms and that transfer of responsibility gave us the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a nuclear Iran that suddenly had wealth enough to offer more and better assistance to Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. As Ronald Regan said, “We maintain peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.” Mind you, this was said by a U.S. president who, for all his faults, believed in American exceptionalism, which is to say, that he believed that the America was, through the miracle of her founding, anointed to lead the nations through a darkness that blinds much of the world and is spreading from the places it was once contained in.
It’s time to recognize that the anti-American exceptionalism chickens have come to roost just as the Confederate did in 1865. Every “occupation” of an American college or university campus, march, demonstration and riot undertaken by keffiyeh-draped protestors (quite a few of whom are in the U.S. on visas) is an attack on the Fort Sumpter of the American collective consciousness. But that attack is not just virtual. Last July, thousands descended upon Washington D.C. to show their support for Hamas by desecrating national monuments, clashing with police and, at one point, breaking through a barricade to enter the National Gallery in a show of political violence. Because certain American politicians have expressed support for demonstrators who call for an American intifada, one would think that progressives would apply the same standard to those politicians and to that attack on America’s Capitol that was applied to President Trump and the January 6th insurrection. What the Democratic Party did instead was invite that “protest movement” to take part in its National Convention. Even though that movement was not allowed to put a speaker before everyone in attendance, their keffiyehs and “not one more bomb” pins featured prominently in the media coverage of the convention.
Having a tolerance for and an appreciation of a nuanced politics is insufficient to justify support for a party that does not regard the mass murder of Jews and support for such murder as a redline. Just as Lincoln once drew a line in the sand with regard to slave holders and their Democratic Party supporters, we must now resist any politics that invites Islamism and its terroristic nature into our national politics. No speech given to AIPAC or affirmation of ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’ should distract us from the immorality of a party leadership that exchanges Jewish, Israeli, and American blood for Muslim and progressive votes and that, for its own gain, prevented an ally from entering enemy territory en force to rescue hostages and to kill or capture terrorists who carried out an attack that was every bit as brutal as 9/11.
A generation ago, America promised to never forget the lessons of 9/11 just as she once promised to never again allow anyone or anything to divide her house and cause it to fall. Democrats holding power over their party and America’s national politics have betrayed us all on both counts.
