Does History Repeat Itself?

By Alan Caruba

For those who do not believe that history repeats itself, I give you the words of a U.S. Senator who died in 2001. At the end of selections from the original text I will reveal who spoke them and the year in which he spoke them.

“The Democratic Party has abandoned the people…It has repudiated the Constitution of the United States. It is leading the evolution of our nation to a socialist dictatorship.

“The Democratic Party has forsaken the people to become the party of minority groups, power-hungry union leaders, political bosses, and big businessmen looking for government contracts and favors…

“The Democratic Party has invaded the private lives of the people by using the powers of government for coercion and intimidation of individuals.

“The Democratic Party has rammed through Congress unconstitutional, impractical, unworkable, and oppressive legislation which invades inalienable personal and property rights of the individual…

“The Democratic Party has established and pursued for our government a no-win foreign policy of weakness, indecision, accommodation, and appeasement.

“The Democratic Party has demonstrated a callous disregard for sound fiscal policies and practices.

“The Democratic Party has encouraged, supported, and protected the Supreme Court in a reign of judicial tyranny, and in the Court’s efforts to wipe out local self-government, effect law enforcement, internal security, the rights of the people and the states, and even the structure of the State governments…

“The party of our fathers is dead…If the American people permit the Democrat Party to return to power, freedom as we have known it in this country is doomed, and individuals will be destined to lives of regulation, control, coercion, intimidation, and subservience to a power elite who shall rule from Washington…

The year was 1964. Lyndon B. Johnson had replaced the assassinated President, John F. Kennedy, and the war in Vietnam was raging. The Republicans would nominate Barry Goldwater as their candidate for President. After a landslide victory, Johnson would serve through 1969, but, mired in the Vietnam War, would forego running for a second full term. His Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, would run for the office, but be defeated by Richard M. Nixon.

The Senator who spoke in 1964 was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. He and his fellow “Dixiecrats” had fought the Civil Rights Act until JFK’s death and the Civil Rights movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., succeeded in his wake.

Forty-four years later, Sen. Barack Obama, an Afro-American, is likely to be the Democrat Party’s nominee unless the super-delegates take it away and give it to Sen. Hillary Clinton. Obama is acknowledged to be the most politically liberal of candidates since Humphrey’s day.

The Democrat Party wants to take over the health care industry in America, imposing yet another entitlement program, not unlike the bankrupt Social Security and Medicare.

The Democrat Party wants to withdraw from Iraq and abandon it to the mercies of Iran and other Islamists.

The Democrat Party is a driving force behind all manner of legislation and regulation based on environmental goals and a belief in global warming, a scientifically discredited hoax.

Strom Thurmond threw his support to Barry Goldwater who was decisively defeated in 1964. Thurmond had switched parties and become a Republican. The South would follow suit. A segregationist, much earlier in his life Thurmond had fathered an illegitimate black daughter. The nation each left behind has since embraced conservative principles even if the White House and Congress have ignored them.

Does history repeat itself? Yes, it does, but often in ways no one can predict.