Once valid, the Democratic Party has become a cartoon version of its former self    By Kelly - Jan 10, 2019
There was a time long, long ago in which the national Democratic Party actually stood for something. Real ideas. Not necessarily good ideas, but substantive ideas nonetheless. The Party was led by men and women who actually articulated substantive programs. John Kennedy formulated meaningful tax policies, and launched America’s conquest of the Moon. His successor, Lyndon Johnson, proposed and pushed through the Congress massive and far-reaching federal support programs that still are costing us today. During the 1970s and into the 80s there were Democratic Members of the Congress who articulated well-considered social policies for welfare recipients and working families; New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan comes to mind.

But no more. Today in the Democratic caucus, a substantive idea would land with an echoing thud on the floor and be quickly swept away; barely noticed amid the vitriol that consumes the nation’s senior national political party.

While Democrats nowadays prefer the moniker “Progressive” to “Liberal” as a descriptor for their Party and its members, there is nothing remotely progressive about this once proud political movement. Today’s Democratic Party has become not only a hollowed-out shell of its former incarnation, but as revealed in just the past four months, now is a cartoon version of what it used to be.

In what previous era in the real world, for example, would a Senator sitting on that body’s Judiciary Committee, label himself “Spartacus” after a movie character, when posing a question to a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States? New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker did precisely that; with a straight face, nonetheless. In this Democratic Bizarro World, that very same Cory Booker is considered a serious contender for his Party’s 2020 nomination for President

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Whereas in decades past when the Democratic Party controlled the levers of power in the House or the Senate, leaders like Tip O’Neill would demand at least some level of decorum and decency from its membership. Today, neither Speaker Nancy Pelosi nor Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dares to – or cares to – step in and insist on even a nominal degree of professionalism. In such an environment, it is then hardly surprising that another freshman Congresswoman proudly uses the foulest of language in public to describe the President of the United States and receives nary the slightest rebuke from Speaker Pelosi.