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stephenkmacksd.com/

Jul 08, 2026

Editor: The first paragraphs of Stephens commetary are just the very beginning of this exploration, that gathers momentem as his historical mentions of toxic political actors on the Left, in service to his adoration of ‘the Bushes or John McCain or Mitt Romney’ is demonstative of a fractured political nostalgia!

I grew up in a conservative movement that thought it had gotten the better of its worst ideological impulses.

True, there were the usual Father Coughlin throwbacks, people like Pat Buchanan, who were against free trade, sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, down on the Jews and inveterately hostile to immigration, legal or otherwise. There were outright bigots and conspiracy theorists and militia types and their assorted followers, avid or furtive. And there was an outsize share of moralizing hypocrites, inevitable among people too fond of speaking in the name of religion and character.

But that wasn’t the conservatism of the Bushes or John McCain or Mitt Romney, pragmatic men who, whether you agreed with them or not, operated on the center-right side of the liberal-democratic tradition. They were the conscience of the Republican Party, maintaining its decency by occasionally calling out the bad guys on their own side.

That was until the moment the G.O.P. chose to delete its conscience by becoming the party of Donald Trump. A similar moment may soon be upon Democrats if they aren’t careful.

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All this is especially true when the more ideologically extreme candidates are energetic, unstuffy, authentic, and able to stir up an audience. Zohran Mamdani, the New York mayor, is emblematic of the type; so was Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat, at least until allegations about his past behavior finally caught up with him.

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Against this tide, the position of many mainstream Democrats is to dodge the ideological fight with the left while warning that, outside of deep-blue districts like those in New York City, democratic socialism is an electoral loser that only provides Trump with political ammunition. In Michigan, Haley Stevens, El-Sayed’s opponent in the Democratic primary, is campaigning on the argument that “no one wants Abdul to win more than the Republicans” — that is, that Republicans see him as the more beatable opponent come November.

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Socialism as a political program was born in the 19th century and died in the 20th (including in Sweden). Democracy requires a clearly defined citizenry, an idea that becomes meaningless if a country pursues a lax or open-border policy of the kind advocated by democratic socialists. The brainstorms of the far left, like the billionaire surtax on the ballot in California, have failed repeatedly wherever they’ve been tried (including in France). And “justice for Palestine” surely can’t mean taking sides with the killers and rapists of Hamas while insisting that the only nation-state on earth with no right to exist is the Jewish one. The word for that is antisemitism, the politics of the double standard toward Jews, which is yet another terrible idea from a terrible past.

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Editor: the final paragraphs of Stephens — It does not occure to Stephens, that the Left he defames is the watershed of both the New Democrats and The Republicas, who are the bought and paid for AIPAC hirelings! (Stephens is member of the club!)

Is there a rising Democrat who will give this speech — the one that says that Democrats stand for freedom and fairness, not radicalism and self-righteousness; the one that never disdains tradition even if it seeks to improve it; the one that knows that utopianism is no substitute for pragmatism, and that purity is not superior to compromise?

That Democrat needs to stand up now, before his party gets swept away by the flood it vainly believes will soon recede.

Nwespaper Reader.