Retooled Democratic and Republican parties are getting ready for the battle over the soul of the nation.

The Republican and Democratic parties are at different phases of unfriendly takeovers. By the Republicans, one can say it all started around 2009 with the early stirrings of the Tea Party movement. When it claimed its first scalp in Congress (Eric Cantor), it announced its arrival. Anyone breathing in the 1980s would not have expected Donald Trump, of all people, to be the avatar of Americans longing for a return to traditional values and governance of the past, but he has been that man since his ride down the elevator at Trump Tower in 2015. The move of the party from the Chamber of Commerce wing of Paul Ryan to the MAGA force of Donald Trump has taken time. In every election cycle, the Republicans of old who enjoyed doing nothing to make their constituents’ lives better are retiring or being retired. Donald Trump is something like 130-0 in this year’s primaries. The process has taken time, and Trump having few allies in Congress when he arrived in 2016 stifled much of his program—along with two impeachments and the phony “Russian collusion” investigation.

As for the Democrats, the party of Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton wants nothing more to do with them or much of their base. Bernie Sanders (technically, an independent) was a lone lefty outcast for much of his senatorial career. But with each cycle, he has new friends like AOC and Chief Lizzy Warren. The explicit takeover of the carcass of the “old” Democratic Party by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is simply the next step left. The party of Bill Clinton that could make deals with Newt Gingrich Republicans gave up trying to triangulate toward the middle. Its official policies are heading to a completely open border, lots of free stuff for illegal aliens, trillions in forgiven student loans, no more ICE, reparations, ending aid to Israel, etc.........

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