"A nation divided against itself cannot stand." – Abraham Lincoln
American inaugurations are special events, indeed. What may seem like lavish opulence at first blush is actually a celebration of something worth celebrating: the peaceful transition of power.
While bloody coups and new constitutions may be "the normal" for the rest of the world, Americans are blessed with the longest surviving Constitution in the history of the world. That is why the inauguration is a time for celebration, prayerful reflection and, yes, unity.
As we celebrate the new hope for the nation in President Donald Trump, and what that means for the world, let us consider the call of civil rights icon John Lewis, and be sure the Trump presidency is a presidency for all Americans.
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., came to prominence upon being brutalized by police during a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. He speaks with authority about the role of the federal government to back up those beautiful guarantees in our Constitution when states fail to enforce them. This is the classic federalist-anti-federalist debate that predated our Constitution.
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Lewis and 16 other Federalist Democrats in Congress, who fought so hard for an expanded federal role in managing state affairs where fundamental rights are in jeopardy, plan to boycott the inauguration due to their fear that President Trump does not share their concern for a federal role for all Americans.
"Some leaders reject decades of progress and want to return to the dark past, when the power of law was used to deny the freedoms protected by the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and its Amendments." – Rep. John Lewis
Rep. Lewis is a face of the new Democratic Party, which sees arguments for "states' rights" as reminders of the "dark past" when states routinely denied their citizens basic human rights.
He recalls a time when the Old Democratic Party, the anti-federalists, flew the Confederate flag and even attempted secession from the nation to maintain their plantation economy built on cheap labor by brown people. The landed gentry maintained the plantation system by depriving the masses basic rights to property, a decent education and an honest election process.
President-elect Trump and all people of good will should join Rep. Lewis and his federalist contemporaries and make sure no American is left behind.
Sadly, millions of Americans are left behind, denied basic rights to the fruit of their labor, a decent education for their children and the American dream of home ownership.
While most of us take for granted the electricity that powers our homes, the gasoline that powers our cars and the water that sustains life itself, for Californians these things are privileges rationed by the masters.
Californians sit on the nation's third largest oil reserves (behind Texas and Alaska). That should equate to the nation's cheapest energy prices, but when we fuel our cars or turn on our lights, and are not in a brown-out, we pay the highest prices in the country. When we are allowed to have water, we are grateful. We pay the highest prices for water in the country even though we live beside an ocean.
Joel Kotkin of the Orange County Register describes California's "new feudalism." He suggests "California is becoming a graveyard for middle-class aspiration" where homeownership rates are the third lowest in the country, behind New York and D.C.
Thus it is that California has become the hardest place in the nation to accumulate wealth, enjoy single-gender bathrooms or simply use plastic bags.
Wealthy, mostly white people in the Bay Area and in fabulous beach communities up and down the coast dine in fine restaurants and drive luxury vehicles, but "the help" can never dream of attaining those heights. Progressive California is the most regressive state in the nation.
Does California have the distinction for the greatest disparity between rich and poor because the masses crave the plantation economy of the Old South? Are they wittingly choosing this with their votes?
I think not.
The last time the nation experienced so much collective hope for a resurgence of liberty, Ronald Reagan ascended to the presidency while millions suffered in the darkness behind the Iron Curtain. I was there to see the Berlin Wall fall, even having the honor to chop on it. Few can imagine the exhilaration of actually tearing open a barrier and seeing people set free from tyranny, families reunited.
Sadly, as the nation celebrates, from the Canadian to the Mexican border, an Iron Curtain has extended across the continent. Our fellow countrymen in California, Washington, Oregon and other "blue states" toil under the tyranny in the resurgence of the Old Democratic Party, one-party control and the new feudalism. The progressives, selling a form of liberty marketed as compassion, have created the new plantations. They are not only talking openly about secession, they hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to be their new Jefferson Davis.
The New Democrats have built these plantations according to a very shrewd plan based upon winners and losers. In his brilliant book, "Confrontational Politics," former California State Sen. H.L. Richardson describes how Bay Area leftists took over the Democratic Party and organized it into the powerhouse it is today.
Community organizers would unite environmentalists, ethnic minorities, trade unions and government unions behind the same candidate with a rule of never having them in the same room together. Increasingly, they used unions, public and construction, to convert taxpayer money into campaign funds.
They then used taxpayer money, state and federal, to send contracted social workers into minority and new immigrant neighborhoods to provide services. Those social workers become community organizers during election cycles, communicating which party truly cares for them. Political money leverages taxpayer money.
Finally, in California, everyone votes. The Voting Rights Act, built on good intentions has been twisted. There is not a single precinct in California lacking a ballot in two languages, and it's common to have ballots printed in 100 languages. How can you be a citizen and not speak the language? How can you cast an educated vote?
California gives all comers, legal and illegal, a driver's license. Starting Jan. 1, the new default for driver's license applicants is automatic voter registration. The illegal alien must communicate to the state agent his or her desire to not be registered. California law allows you to vote without any identification at all, and both California law and the Voting Rights Act forbid poll workers from asking about citizenship. Democrat Secretary of State Alex Padilla predicted the registration of more than six million new voters as a result of the change, crowing, "There will be a huge influx of new voters, and that's good for our democracy."
The New Democrats built the new plantation on taxpayer money funneled through unions and by eroding election integrity. That is why, as the nation celebrates Donald Trump, Californians are excited about rumors that Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, tech billionaire and Trump supporter, is considering a run for governor of the Golden State.
Let me say this... if you do, I am all IN @peterthiel #mcga #makecaligreatagain @ThomasSSchmitz @HeyTammyBruce @johnloudon @jsnbieber pic.twitter.com/HUkrzukOoF
— Gina Gentry Loudon (@RealDrGina) January 15, 2017
The nation must not leave blue staters behind.
While we wrestle with important issues of Obamacare, trade policy and building that critical wall, we must also be dedicated to the fundamental rights of people suffering behind the blue state walls. If Rep. Lewis sits out the inauguration of President Trump over concerns about the alarming rise of the Old Democrat secessionists in California, my hat's off to him.