The radicals of the extreme Left are losing their minds over a handful of moderate Democratic Senators who put country before ideology by voting to open the government. Clearly the factions within Democratic ranks are widening as the Left becomes ever more aggressive.

If one believes the media, from both sides of the political spectrum, then one believes that the modern Democratic Party is now some form of an American Socialist Party. I doubt that such is true, instead I believe that this is a machination of the media and of a very loud extreme Left trying to aggrandize itself. My belief is that the recent election result in New York does not reflect the beliefs of the majority of Democrats in this country. Sure, they collectively hate Trump, but I don’t believe that that results from a burning desire to tear down our capitalist system, the economic system that gave Americans one of the highest living standards in history. I don’t believe that ranks of traditional Democrats have just overnight disappeared, to be replaced by the organized bands of extremists that we see on TV.

So, if I am correct what would I expect to happen leading up to the mid-terms? Well, for sure I would not expect the traditional Democrats, what the media refers to today as the moderates, to just lay down and surrender their Party to Marxists. Instead, I would expect the Party mainliners would recognize that radical politics are not where the country is and that in order to win, they must rally behind traditional values heretofore espoused by the Party. Most importantly they must identify a voice to express to the American people that there is an alternative to radical policies and leadership and that such an alternative is alive and well within the traditional Democratic Party.

Perhaps what I am describing is an internecine civil war for the very soul of the Party. A battle by the beholders of a philosophy of traditional liberalism versus those that have latched onto an untested belief in an American version of socialism or worse. The history of Europe in the early twentieth century featured just such a struggle, that is until the extreme forces of reaction destroyed both sides along with the peace of the world.

Perhaps I misjudge the facts, perhaps there is no substantial core of traditional Democrats left. If so, the Democratic Party that we have known may go the way of the Whigs as a footnote to American history, to be replaced by the Democratic Socialist Party. The political question then will certainly be whether the majority of all Americans would be willing to surrender their personal freedom to the collective and to the authoritarian power which is the only way to hold a socialistic economic system together.

We do live in challenging times and, as I have noted, there is plenty of historical prolog to help understand the potential outcomes of a clash of capitalism and freedom against collectivism propped up by authoritarianism.