Democrats Have Sold Their Souls

The election is over.  From my perspective, we dodged a bullet.  Hillary Clinton was easily the most corrupt presidential candidate in the last one hundred years.  I shudder to think how she would have conducted herself had she been allowed in the White House.

Nonetheless, Democrats are not out of the woods.  They are liable to experience a setback at least as severe as the Republicans did after Watergate.  The fact that so many otherwise decent Americans supported someone so dishonest will come back to haunt them.

To begin with, Democratic voters sold their souls for the sake of false Gods.  In placing their faith in Hillary, they demonstrated a troubling streak of amorality.  Clinton’s supporters knew she was a liar.  They were also aware her server was illegal and the Clinton Foundation a scam.  They just did not care.

Why?  There are several reasons.  First, many wanted a female president no matter what.  Second, they believed in her liberal policies.  They considered them compassionate.  Third, they hated Trump and his crass persona.

The problems with these justifications are manifold.  No matter what a candidate’s policies, if she is a demagogue, she will govern in a way that hurts people.  Our nation’s Founders counted on an honorable citizenry to sustain the Republic.  Hillary is not honorable.

In a mass society, strangers must trust one another.  They have to rely on what others tell them.  Clinton, however, was not a paragon of virtue.  To describe her as two-faced would do an injustice to the menagerie of faces she carries around in her baggage.

Then there is Hillary’s extreme liberalism.  Many of her Democratic constituents may applaud this, but it would have been an albatross around the country’s neck.  Liberalism is dying.  Obama’s agenda has been a failure.  Between ObamaCare, a feeble economic recovery, and a feckless foreign policy, he has been one of our worst presidents.

Obama maintained his popularity despite this abysmal performance.  His affability covered a multitude of transgressions.  Hillary, however, is not as likeable.  Given the same record, she would not have been allowed the same degree of charity.

Liberalism has run its course.  Its many promises have not been redeemed.  No government can create complete equality.  None can induce its citizens to genuinely love each other.  To assume that one could, would have saddled Hillary with an impossible mission.

But the most important way that Democrats sold their souls was that they consigned their party to a decade in the political wilderness.  Assuming that Trump is a halfway decent president, liberals will soon be revealed as irredeemably corrupt.

Trump is sure to clean out the Augean stables euphemistically described as the Department of Justice.  This means that the Clinton legacy of wrongdoing will be exposed.  Grand juries will be empanelled and convictions will follow.

Hillary herself is apt to be granted a pardon by Obama.  Putting her in jail would be too traumatic for the nation.  Nonetheless, her henchmen are in serious jeopardy.  Perhaps dozens of them will wind up behind bars before the bloodletting subsides.

What will this do to the Democratic Party?  Remember what Watergate did to the Republicans.  Since the Democratic bench is depleted, who will be left to uphold the party’s dignity?

Liberalism has hitherto been sustained by propaganda and false promises.  What happens when there is no one left on stage to make believable claims?  The mainstream media can’t do this alone.  They too have been discredited by heavy-handed partisanship.

Left wingers, up and down a line, have demonstrated a disconcerting lack of integrity.  This flaw has compounded the problems generated by an absence of competence or new ideas.  How then can they recover their reputations?  Without a sitting president to serve as protector and apologist, where will they turn?

Selling out to Hillary was thus a colossal mistake.  The hollow propagandists that many Democrats turned out to be do not possess the substance to reclaim a place of honor.  They have even less to offer than their mentor.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University