How our ‘new’ Democratic Party is really a blast from the Jacobin past

For the past century, the agendas of the Democratic Party were predictable: They professed concern for working Americans and supported blue-collar unions.

Unemployment insurance, a 40-hour workweek, disability insurance and Social Security were their trademarks — achieved by growing government bureaucracies and continually raising taxes.

Still, many Democrats were socially conservative.

They deplored antisemitism.

Party officials had rejected their own segregationists to champion civil rights.

Presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy all supported strong defense and military deterrence.

All that is now passé.

The only vestigial Democrat left in Congress is Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, roundly despised by Democratic leaders.

Today, supporting Israel and calling for campuses to stop their institutionalized antisemitism is Democratic political suicide.

Forty years ago, any Democrat with a Nazi tattoo would be political toast; today, he can become the party’s nominee for the Maine Senate race.

That means the current Democratic Party is no longer truly democratic at all.

Its new spirit and methods resemble those of the radical Jacobin Party of the French Revolution.

Jacobinism aims to divide the nation arbitrarily between the noble oppressed and the toxic oppressors.

So these new Jacobins have institutionalized racially separate college dorms and graduation ceremonies, along with hiring and promoting on the basis of race.

The new Jacobins destroyed the southern border and welcomed in 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens as a future proletariat constituency.

Today’s Jacobins would now ridicule as “fascist” and “racist” Bill Clinton’s 1990s calls for secure borders and an end to illegal immigration.

The most recent nihilist developments in American society can be attributed to these Jacobin “Democrats”: biological men competing in women’s sports, critical legal theory normalizing cashless bail, race-based reparations, violent felons arrested and back on the street hours later, radical abortion on demand until birth, attacks on the concept of the cultural “melting pot” and opposition to organized Christianity.

These agendas lack broad majority support, so street theater and violence focus on Tesla dealerships, ICE officers, conservative campus speakers and, at times, any journalists covering the unrest.

Jacobins make excuses for pro-Hamas campus violence, which often targets Jewish students.

The often violent and corrupt Black Lives Matter movement was a Jacobin ancillary.

Free speech is labeled “disinformation” and “misinformation” — synonyms for not toeing the Jacobin Party line.

Until recent pushbacks, near-religious radical green agendas warred against fossil fuels and cost the working classes billions of dollars for sky-high fuel and electricity costs.

Like the Robespierre brothers of old, the most radical Jacobins are often found among the wealthiest and most privileged Americans.

Radical New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani grew up as a rich Ugandan.

Self-described communist Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner attended one of the nation’s most elite and expensive prep schools.

When avowed socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders barnstormed the country, they did so via private jets.

“Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar can’t decide whether she’s worth $30 million or nothing.

Hard-left California gubernatorial candidate and radical environmentalist Tom Steyer is a billionaire who jump-started his fortune by investing in coal plants overseas and offshoring profits to avoid taxes.

At least 10 states are drafting laws to tax the net worth as well as the income of “billionaires and millionaires,” apparently for their “social” crimes.

Mamdani taps on the window of philanthropist Ken Griffin as a warning to get out of town.

The mayor of Seattle scoffs at the rich leaving her state with their billions due to new punitive taxes, offering a sarcastic “Bye.”

In the old days, Democrats were embarrassed by their radicals.

They distanced themselves from the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panthers.

Today, left-wing bomb throwers are the Democratic Party.

Hasan Piker, another multimillionaire, $200,000 Porsche-driving communist, has openly supported “social murder” and essentially praised Luigi Mangione’s targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Meanwhile, Jacobins on social media expressed disappointment that all three assassination attempts on Donald Trump failed.

The arsonist who burned down Pacific Palisades was a Mangione acolyte and saw his destruction as a revolutionary act, perhaps a form of mass “social murder.”

Jacobin politicians call for Trump to be “eliminated,” label him a “fascist” and call for “any means necessary” to end his presidency.

The aim is to lower the social and psychological barrier to violence.

The Jacobin Democrats of today are systematically destroying the legacy of the Democratic Party.

And why not?

Their model is not the American Founding, but the radical mandated equality — and violence — of the French Revolution.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.