When Does A Political Party Deserve To Die?

George Washington was asked what he thought about the formation of political parties. He replied that he was adamantly against the idea.

Nevertheless, during his presidency, the first two parties emerged organically from policy disputes, differing visions of the country, and personal rivalries. The first two parties were the Federists headed by Hamilton and John Adams and the Democratic #Republicans, headed by Jefferson and Madison.

The Federalists wanted a strong central government, a national bank, and an alliance with Britain. The Republicans, as they soon came to be called, wanted a smaller central government in favor of states’ rights, a strict adherence to the constitution and no alliance with Britain. The parties quickly coalesced around the need to organize voters, coordinate legislative action, and win elections.

In my new historical novel. An American Slave in Barbary, my narrator, Winston Jones, gains an audience with Jefferson at his home, Monticello, in Virginia. The year is 1817. There Winston congratulates the founder of Republican party on its near destruction of the Federalist party one year earlier.

At the time of the election of 1816, the Federalists in Congress had been reduced to a small number from the New England States whose shipping and trade interests with Britain were so paramount, it caused them to publicly mount a secession movement. The timing was a disaster. Shortly thereafter, news arrived of Andrew Jackson’s stunning victory over the British in New Orleans followed by the near simultaneous arrival of the signed Treaty of Ghent which ended our second war with Britain.

The Federalists’ total humiliation was followed by their nomination of Rufus King who lost in a landslide to James Monroe in the presidential election of 1816. He was the last Federalist to run for president. The party ceased to exist by 1820.

Defund the police, disband the Senate, Medicare for all, open the border, give voting rights to illegals, close the prisons, disband the electoral college—these are some of the initiatives advocated by the Democratic Socialist (DSA) members running for Congress in this year’s midterm elections. While they are not the official positions of the Democrat party, they are advocated by approximately 40 Democrat candidates, endorsed by or are members of the DSA. And while the House Minority Leader, Hakim Jefferies and Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schummer, may not have endorsed them, they have welcomed them in because the #Democrats are a “big tent” party.

Furthermore, not all the Democrats in Congress have taken a stand on the DSA initiatives. But all of them except one, John Fetterman, when asked, will condemn #Israel, our most important ally in the world.

Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who chooses his words carefully and does not engage in hyperbole, is now saying that Republicans must retain their majorities in the House and Senate to save the country. This imperative may take desperate measures because, unlike Jefferson’s day, our recent history tells us, a sitting President will almost always lose House and Senate members from his party in the midterms. The insipid aphorism for this phenomenon is “Americans prefer divided government.”

Who could have foreseen the terrible irony that on the two-hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we would be debating whether to remain a free constitutional republic?

Make no mistake, Karl Marx, the father of collectivist theory, is known to have said, “Socialism is the first step toward communism, the perfect society.”

Collectivsm by whatever name you give it, is incompatible with America’s constitution and with our system of governance. Under the American system, simply because citizen A has a need, it does not give our government the right to seize citizen B’s assts. In fact, our constitution is written to protect all citizens from such depredations. Similarly, healthcare cannot be a right if it is dependent upon the government seizing someone else’s assts to pay for it.

Simple deductive thought is always missing for the collectivists. Before Marx was born, the Scottish philosopher and economist, Adam Smith, wrote the Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759. In it he warns that “the political reformer manifests the highest degree of arrogance” and seeks “to erect his own judgement into a supreme standard of right and wrong…he fancies himself the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth…he in time, becomes the dupe of his own sophistry.”

Smith became an important influencer of his day, read and absorbed deeply by our founders. He is sublimely prophetic of our dire situation now. Not only are the members of the “big tent” so arrogant, so certain that they are the arbiters of right and wrong, they firmly believe the sitting president and all who supported him are the “enemies of democracy.” And as “dupes of their own sophistry,” their endless accusations and others such as “collusion with the Russians” or “genocide in Gaza” have become truth for them.

In this sophistry, they have become very dangerous. There have been three assassination attempts on this president’s life. The first occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, where he took a bullet in the ear. The second occurred two months later in West Palm Beach, where the assassin was discovered and stopped. The third was in April of this year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington DC where the gunman opened fire before being subdued.

They have succeeded in creating a hyper polarization of our society which has led to two infamous assassinations by duped gunmen, Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, killed on the street in Manhattan, and Charlie Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, killed at Utah Valley University. Some have accused the big tent party of creating an “assassination culture.”

Could it be the “big tent” party is full of operatives funded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? The answer is yes. In fact, it is infiltrated by both Russian and Chinese operatives, some of whom are American converts. The former KGB officer and defector, Yuri Bezmenov, wrote that their goal was not to blow up bridges but to alter a population’s perception of reality so they could not reach sensible conclusions in defense of themselves, their families, and their country.

Bezmenov, who gave brilliant lectures at American Universities stated, “Subversion works by seizing existing domestic grievances and radical fringes, then pushing them toward internal crisis.” Does that sound familiar?

Investigative reporter Peter Schweitzer has revealed the Shanghai-based tech mogul, Neville Roy Singham, in conjunction with the CCP, channel millions of dollars to leftist non-profits whose members are the activists we see on our screens picketing and disrupting ICE operations.

In summary, if the “big tent” party actively advocates for the unconstitutional seizure of its citizens lawfully acquired private property and, in league with our mortal enemies, it is actively involved in sowing violent discord, what is its raison d’ etre, its reason for being?

Freedom is always under siege.