In the 250 years since its founding, America has been on a journey. It is a journey by which an imperfect republic has sought to reach nirvana—in the form of human rights perfection. We began the journey with a Constitution, appropriate for the time, reflecting the tremendous insights of our Founding Fathers. They recognized the need to be able to adjust it to the changing societal needs of the future, and understood they did not have all the answers.
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Yet, ironically, at a time we now find ourselves closer than ever in reaching that nirvana, we discover that an influence impacting America’s journey—negatively redirecting it—is gaining ground. With our 250th birthday upon us, we must understand what is driving this influence and whether it can be stopped.
There have basically been two major political parties involved in this journey, each believing it knew the best direction in which to proceed. Depending upon the route laid out for the journey, elections were won or lost by parties whose voters always had a fairly good grasp of what was to be achieved, or not, by a candidate’s election.
It has been interesting to see the historical change the Democrat party has undergone during the journey’s advance. On some issues, the journey was abandoned completely—albeit somewhat hesitatingly—as it recognized its Republican opponents had earlier set out in what was the right direction.
This was clear years ago as Democrats changed direction on the pro-slavey issue. Yet, despite a Republican Party that was responsible for voting the first 23 black members into Congress, Democrats have tried to paint their political opponents with an anti-black stroke. They forget, or more accurately deceive voters, by failing to acknowledge Democrats have slavery in their DNA and that it was followers of a Republican Party government who were left dead on battlefields fighting to win freedom for blacks in our Civil War. Ignored too is the fact that, even after the freedom of blacks was won, Democrats fed the rise of a violent anti-black group known as the Ku Klux Klan.
It would take another century before Democrats seemed to get back on the right track as President John F. Kennedy (JFK) led the fight for civil rights in the 1960s. But, while our two political parties had their differences during the balance of the 20th century—both exploring what bearings to take to advance the journey to human rights perfection—they largely did so with a sense of purpose and civility. The 21st century, however, witnessed a big change.
This change became apparent with the use of filibusters becoming more prevalent in the 2010s, revealing an unwillingness of the parties to work together and giving rise to partisan gridlock. The contentiousness of the last three presidential elections—fed by candidates whose political views could not be more diametrically opposed to each other—further triggered tensions. It also has witnessed a quiet redirection to a road less traveled in U.S. history.
During the 1930s, the Depression gave a boost to international communism. That boost was relatively short-lived as World War II erupted and a post-war Soviet Union revealed communism’s true colors. While we thought we had destroyed the communist threat with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, we failed to see the seedling that would take root domestically in the years ahead.
The real poster child for U.S. socialist democracy—which for all intents and purposes is as close to being communism without labeling it as such—is self-avowed progressive ideologist and independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. As a college student, he joined protest movements, later moving to Vermont where he became involved in politics. He was elected city mayor in 1981 and never looked back, going on to win elections as a U.S. representative and in 2006 as a senator.
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Perhaps a contributing factor in Sanders’s socialist democrat leaning may have been the fact he has had virtually no experience in working in corporate America. He has spent his entire adult life serving in elected office. But his 2016 presidential campaign run would fertilize the soil for candidates running under the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) banner. This is when the threat to America woke many from their stupor.
After the 2017 elections, a total of 35 DSA members held state and local offices. By April 2018, there were 40 DSA members in office with the 2018 midterms bringing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib to the House. DSA had endorsed 93 state and local candidates—50 of whom won primaries and 40 their general election. In 2019, the total number of DSA members in office rose to 71. The 2020 elections led to DSA members Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush getting elected to the House along with 36 others who won various offices, tallying more than 3.1 million votes and holding 101 seats. By October 2022, DSA had over 120 candidates in local offices; by August 2023, it had nearly 160; by January 2024, it claimed “over 200 elected officials spanning every level of government.” 2025 saw this total rise to 250, (including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani) with 90% gaining office after 2019. Between 2016–2025, 128 DSA nationally-endorsed candidates had won election and 31 DSA endorsed ballot initiatives were passed into law.
Of further concern is the recent primary wins of three new socialist Democrats in New York and one in Pennsylvania. Due to the very heavy leftward slant of their districts, while not yet elected to office, they are considered “presumptive” members of Congress.
DSA is clearly a cancer that is growing quickly which, if left untreated, will totally redirect America’s journey.
Obviously, with the help of DSA’s negative influence, the Democrat party of today is not that of JFK. However, the recent primary wins of the four socialist Democrats above finally triggered an internal Democrat party response. A party that has long presented a unified front in its quest for power at the expense of our national security interests finally paused to reflect upon its misguided journey.
This reflection caused thirteen Democrat centrist members of Congress to take a most unusual step. Knowing the far-left primary winners will undoubtedly soon be seated in Congress, the centrists have made clear that any effort by the leftists to hijack the House floor to extract ideological concessions will not be tolerated, resulting in intra-party warfare. While the Democrat party has tolerated the conduct of socialist Democrats far too long, its centrists have finally thrown down the gauntlet, seeking to block their effort to reroute the direction of our journey.
This is undoubtedly the best gift America could receive on the occasion of her 250th birthday.
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Image generated by ChatGPT.