IIn 2004, I served as independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s Iowa coordinator. (That was long before evolution made of me the stalwart President Trump supporter I presently am.)

Back then, it was common for Nader’s critics to disparage as “wasted votes” ones cast for him. His common-sensical rejoinder was that the only “wasted” ballots were ones endorsing aspirants who did not share voters’ values.

With that in mind, one can ask: What JFK/Clinton/Harkin-type values enjoy practical (not merely rhetorical) representation by current progressive Democrats?

In his address to the Zionists of America’s 1960 convention, soon-to-be president JFK said: “For Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave…It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom…”

Were Kennedy to knock on Democrats’ 2025 door, though, Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, and AOC would speed on cartoon legs to slap in the deadbolt.

(Once, responding to a critical social media post by Jewish longtime senate Democrat Joe Lieberman, AOC scoffed: “New party. Who dis?”)

Recently, DNC Chairman Ken Martin hailed Jew-loathing and communistic Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign. Martin boasted Democrats are a “big tent” party.

But even parties striving to be inclusive can express basic values through non-negotiable standards. What Democrats are saying by throwing arms about venomous antisemites is very ugly.

Other examples of progressives’ Israel-hating virulence include campus lackwits who perpetrate destruction and other criminality from topsy-turvy notions of morality, and the rise of Congress’s America-hating Squad, with its traffic-blocking, dunder-pated foot soldiers.

Old-school liberals may imagine themselves to be striding forward. But the progressive Democrats for whom they religiously vote are actually goose-stepping backward.

Progressives purr that racial segregation – an ugliness that merits unvarying contempt – is jolly-jack splendid when the subject of black-only college dorms rises. More than 100 such inherently unjust institutions are said to be in current operation.

A yawning chasm separates the fine racial-equality principle Democrats once espoused, and new-day “equity” theorizing. The former advocated equal opportunity; the latter argues a person’s superficial skin color is their most significant quality. Not values, integrity, intellect, abilities, experience, accomplishments, aspirations, or potential.

Progressive reasoning holds that educational and professional opportunities must be accorded per racial classification. That claptrap posits equality to be a negative. It is sharply divergent from old-school liberalism’s championing of universal opportunity.

Only a few years ago, campus-crawling quislings demanded an MLK quote be sand-blasted off a college building, as it didn’t specifically mention women in its call for social justice, and referred only to “all men.” (Of course, fifteen minutes later, progressives declared themselves unable to define “woman.” Such indicates the headlong dash of ideological madcapism untethered to rationality.)

Remember that Bill Clinton urged abortions be “safe, legal, and rare?” In present days, progressives with hypno-coin eyes shriek that massive-scale baby-dismemberment is virtuous. Expect them to soon argue that pavements leading to Planned Parenthood butchery parlors be strewn with pastel ticker tape.

(Females give birth to new human beings per Divine design. Ice-blooded rejection of God’s will is entirely in character for sacrilegious progressives who thunder that The State is the highest authority. The evil proposition that the Supreme Creator blundered also manifests as fancied “gender reassignments.”)

Woke fancies are predicated on the false conviction that standards of right and wrong are subjective. They are not. God’s Word makes clear that morality is set and beyond disputation. Men can abide by His standard or not, but we cannot refashion it for personal comfort and convenience.

But Progressives loathe Spiritual Faith. Their urge to demolish Western Civilization traditions has led them to embrace moral foulness.

How might veteran blue voters justify – even in the quietude of inner reflection – endorsing ideas violently contrary to their own? Do they find the mere name “Democrat” sufficient by itself?

Gray-bearded liberal voters may buoy a party that has no use for them, save for as ballot-box lever-graspers, out of ill-considered loyalty, mawkish sentimentality, and/or undiscerning robotism. The reason(s) are inconsequential. That they wreak grave damage on America is indisputable.

Such benighted persons might as well believe progressive idiocies. Because by their uncritical endorsements, they enable resultant terribleness. There is no respectable explanation for why they’ve chosen to fill their stupidity cups to overflowing.

They’re wasting precious votes.

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Waterloo’s DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Stand Up and Ideas Afoot. He counts among freelance credits the Tucker Carlson-founded Daily Caller, The Iowa Standard, and American Thinker. His political blog is American Scene Magazine.