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I love the country but I cant stand the scene, Leonard Cohen croons in Democracy. Its been a beautiful autumn in Washington, DC: the sky a crisp blue, the fallen leaves as deeply red and orange as Ive seen them since I moved here five years ago. Yet to be American today is to identify painfully with Cohens sentiment. Those of us who love our country despite everything are nevertheless faced with the scene: hyper-partisanship, hypocrisy and the debasement of our democracy.

Now that the General Services Administration (GSA) has acknowledged Joe Biden as the apparent winner of the presidential election, meaning the Trump administration will, after weeks of delay, begin cooperating with Bidens transition team, it is tempting to conclude that Cohens lyric doesnt apply to the present after all. With Biden releasing the names of his appointees for cabinet and White House positions, you could imagine, despite the outgoing presidents efforts to sabotage it, that this was like any other presidential transition.

[see also: The divided heart of the GOP]

But the news that the handover is belatedly to commence does not make this a normal transfer of power. Though Donald Trump tweeted his support for the GSAs decision, he has not conceded, and pledged to continue his efforts to overturn the election result. His team is pursuing its legal challenges in battleground states and is reportedly attempting to pressure Republican-controlled legislatures in states won by Biden to appoint pro-Trump electors (in the hope that these electors might vote against the wishes of their respective states when the electoral college meets on 14 December).

Such attempted interventions have thus far come to little. Nevertheless, public condemnation on Capitol Hill of Trumps refusal to concede has, like so much else during his tenure, been highly partisan: very few of the nations leading Republican politicians have congratulated Biden on his victory. Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the DC-based Center for a New American Security think tank and a former foreign policy adviser to the late senator John McCain, told me that Republican senators are attempting to shift the sword of Damocles from their hand to the legal systems hand.

Republican senators and representatives know they should be behaving better, but dont care, a Democratic congressional aide told me. Many Republicans privately express dismay at Trumps antics, or at least say his attempts to overturn the result wont work. But publicly, they insist that he has the right to legally challenge the election. Of course, we hope that there would be more Republicans who would not stay silent. But its pretty dangerous that its now considered a profile in courage to just accept election results. That, to me, is such a low bar. Only in Washington would that be courageous, the aide observed.

[see also: What Trump wants now]

At some point, Trump will have to leave the White House. He lost the election, and his attempts to persuade the country otherwise are so unconvincing that even Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who helped Trump prepare for the first presidential debate, called the presidents legal team a national embarrassment. Yet the Trump administrations efforts to delay the transition and undermine the election result present a stubborn and wholly unnecessary threat to the country. Of course were going to get through this, Fontaine told me. But the way Trump is handling things imposes a cost. Theres a cost to how people will see this election, to the millions of people who believe Trump is fighting for them and are devastated by the outcome And it injects risk when you have a truncated transition.

The conduct of the outgoing president poses a potential threat to national security. The shortened transition after the 2000 presidential election, which was called in favour of George W Bush more than a month after polling day following a protracted recount dispute in Florida, has been cited as one of the factors that left the US more vulnerable to the 9/11 attacks the following year.

Trumps weeks-long refusal to cooperate with Bidens transition team also imperils the federal response to the pandemic. The Maine senator Susan Collins, one of a handful of Republicans to acknowledge Biden as president-elect, said it is absolutely crucial that the incoming administration has access to information on vaccine distribution. Any delay in that is obviously dangerous, the Democratic congressional aide told me. As if his mishandling of the public health crisis wasnt bad enough, Trump may also have hampered his successors ability to steer the country out of it.

[see also: Leader: The last days of Trump]

Trump may not be staging a coup at least not a successful one but his attempt to delegitimise the election also injects risk into US democracy, faith in which is being eroded with each day. This erosion will likely continue after Trump has left the White House. Trump is only a symptom of this rising alt-right, another congressional Democratic staffer told me. You have huge audiences following alt-right networks that dont believe Biden is legitimate.

Still, the staffer hoped there could be a positive outcome from this fraught transition: [Perhaps if] we can embrace the problem, we can talk about solutions that are larger than going back to normal, going back to decency. If Trumps conduct over the past weeks and years has revealed some of the darker truths about the parlous state of American democracy, it has also presented those who will succeed him with an opportunity to begin to reckon with these truths. Im neither left or right,/Im just staying home tonight,/getting lost in that hopeless little screen, Cohen sings. Im junk but Im still holding up/this little wild bouquet:/Democracy is coming to the USA.

Originally posted here:
The Biden transition is at last under way, but the delay could prove costly for US democracy - New Statesman

Courtesy of CPUSA

Political correctness has run amuck on college campuses, according to Ben Shapiro, a 34-year-old pro-Trump commentator who recently condemned the anti-fascist rallies held at universities across the nation over the last four years. These actions, organized by students themselves, have often prevented the public promotion of racist and transphobic doctrines by alt-right speakers.

But the action stretched far beyond the campus. The numbers are in, and after four years of Donald Trumps racist, extreme right, anti-science rhetoric, its clear that the youth have stood up in protest and in defense of democracy, both in the streets and at the ballot box.

Young voters nationwide supported Biden-Harris by 62% compared to 35% for Trump, according to the New York Times, even though in some states the majority of youth still went for Trump.

In some battleground swing states, the research center CIRCLE indicates, youth votes may have made the difference that enabled Democrats to carry the win by a small margin. For example, in Georgia, 21%of Biden-Harris votes came from young Georgians. They supported Biden-Harris over Trump by 18 percentage points, providing a 187,000 votes lead in the youth demographic.

The Black Lives Matter and Abolish ICE movements were as important as the pandemic in motivating many young Black and brown voters. Racism was the most important issue for 35% of young voters, notching out the pandemic, which ranked as the top priority for 34%, according to CIRCLEs analysis. Young Black voters supported Biden-Harris by a larger margin than Trump both in Georgia (nearly 90%) and nationwide (estimated at 86%).

NextGen, a grassroots voter registration campaign that was particularly active in the southwest, focused on getting all eligible young voters out to vote, including the more than 800,000 young Latinos who had turned 18 since the last presidential election.

Youth vote re-energized

Looking back to the primaries at the beginning of the year, note was made by many that the youth vote was down. This, of course, was before most of the COVID-related lockdowns across the country were implemented. Youth were expected to turn out in the millions for Bernie Sanders, but voter suppression took its toll, and the stakes did not seem as high at the time as they did a few weeks ago for the general election.

Few in February and March understood the severity of the pandemic or how long it would last. Even fewer anticipated how catastrophically Trump and the GOP would fail in their COVID-19 response. Young people werent expecting to get sent home from their college campuses to do online classes, nor were they expecting to be fired from their part-time or full-time jobs as a result of the economic crisis which followed.

But in late May, a wave of protests and mass demonstrations began as the Black Lives Matter movement responded to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. This national anti-racist uprising continued throughout the summer. It sparked youth involvement in the democratic process by means of huge protests, sit-ins, and occupations of public property, including City Hall in New York City.

Over the summer the Defund the Police slogan of the BLM movement paralleled the Abolish ICE slogan that Latino youth in the Southwest pushed forward in their resistance to immigrant families being separated at the border and ultimately deported.

Young Communists swing into action

School started back up at the end of the summerthis time online or with a hybrid at-home/at-school schedule, and young people remained mobilized. During the first eight months of the pandemic, the Young Communist League, the Communist Party USAs youth branch, consolidated chapters across the country in the states of Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, New York, and Connecticut.

In these states, the YCL initiated mass recruitment campaigns that went hand-in-hand with voter registration efforts, mutual aid to feed and provide PPE to those in need, canvassing, and phone-banking. Communist banners were in the lead at four BLM protests over the summer.

The YCL in Ohio led the Vote for Tamir campaign with Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice. Tamir, a 12-year-old Black child, was shot by police in Cleveland in 2014. He would have been eligible to vote for the first time in this election. In New York, the YCL took part in canvassing field trips to Pennsylvania with other allies.

It all came together on Election Day. In response to mass unemployment, interrupted school schedules, canceled graduations, and an international uprising against racist police violence, the youth of this country turned out stronger than ever to defeat Trump and the extreme right danger he represented.

There is no basis for the explanation that the much higher youth participation in November compared to the primaries is due to Biden having more appeal for young people than Sanders did.

Bernies message of canceling student debt, a Green New Deal, universal healthcare, free tuition, defunding the police, and cutting the military budget remains a point of unity for millions of young people across this country. The youth want an alternative to the two parties, neither of which they feel represent them.

The youth must remain mobilized and organized in this next period, starting with preventing Trumps coup. Its important to remember that even with a Democratic majority in Congress and a Biden presidency, its really up to a movement of young workers and students to push this administration to carry out the program that inspired this youth upsurge.

As with all op-eds published by Peoples World, this article represents the opinions of its author.

Link:
Youth defend democracy at the ballot box and in the streets - People's World

Anyone who truly cares about the future of American democracy knows that we need a healthy Republican Party as well as a healthy Democratic Party. The two-party system has been corrupted by the emergence of special interest groups with lots of money and motivated voters, and even more by the application of computerized models to the task of redistricting. There are remedies to both those diseases, but no one has yet devised a plausible replacement for the two-party system.

What is the best future for the Republican Party? Last week, I called attention to a fine article by Robert Christian at Eureka Street in which he wrote:

The real mystery is over the future of the Republican Party. Will alt-Catholicism collapse without a president that affirms its illiberal, antidemocratic impulses? Will it find a new leader to champion its ideas? Will President Trump run again in 2024 or will one of his children take up the cause? We are unlikely to see Trumpian nationalism disappear, since this election was not a clear rejection of it. But its future and the role of Catholics in promoting it are murky right now. Some may double down, while others may pull away.

The happily-named Christian edits the online journal for young Catholics, Millennial, which should become a must-read for anyone who is serious about Catholic engagement with politics. And, here, he is right: The GOP first needs to decide if it is going to remain the party of Donald Trump or if it is going to try a less morally compromised alternative.

Christian argues the GOP should "build a more working class, diverse Republican Party that is guided by communitarian andwhole lifevalues. Instead of relying on the dark side of populism, this approach would seek to reshape the party by promoting pro-family policies on issues like childcare and economic security, while displaying a more consistent commitment to protecting human life."

This is plausible with one significant correction: It is next to impossible to imagine a Republican Party that is communitarian. One of the commitments that stretches across the entire party is a commitment to individual liberty. It is a bridge too far to expect the party to replace that commitment with communitarian values.

The GOP of the future could, however, embrace liberty in the manner of the great founder of modern conservative politics, Edmund Burke. I have been rereading the outstanding intellectual biography of Burke, The Great Melody by Conor Cruise O'Brien. You will recognize the title from Yeats' poem, "The Seven Sages," in which he writes:

The First. American colonies, Ireland, France and IndiaHarried, and Burke's great melody against it.

Yeats discerned, and O'Brien explains, what Burke's many critics could not, that he was no mere reactionary. Burke's sympathy with the American Revolution (and for that matter with the English Revolution of the previous century) and his antipathy to the French were of a piece, that he saw the American Revolution as an effort to conserve liberties already enjoyed, while there was something dangerous, something totalitarian, at work in the French Revolution. Similarly, Burke's love for the people of his native Ireland and his hatred for the East India Company were of a piece too, both emotions stirred by a disgust with arbitrary authority or tyranny.

O'Brien may have overreached in arguing that Burke was truly a liberal pluralist. (He published a fascinating correspondence with Isaiah Berlin on the subject at the end of the book.) But he is correct to cite Philippe Raynaud who said of the Burke: "A la fois liberale et contre-revolutionnaire," that is "simultaneously liberal and a counter-revolutionary." Here is a potential future for the Republican Party.

By "liberal" in this context, we do not mean aligned with what passes for liberalism in America today. We mean committed to liberty as a fundamental value in public life. Burke did not share the negative conception of liberty that animated the Founding Fathers. For him, the liberty that mattered was the liberty embedded in the customs and circumstances of a people and it was ordered, that is, legitimate when disposed to the good or the true. He would not have flown a "Don't tread on me" flag, but he would have respected the conception of liberty the flag conveyed for Americans of his day.

It is not possible for Republicans to embrace Burke's conception of liberty in its entirety, but they could leverage it against the libertarian iteration of freedom that must be abandoned by the GOP and by the Democrats too! Sadly, even the public health crisis through which we are passing has not caused some people to recognize the limits of libertarianism. The Planned Parenthood worker-turned-pro-life activist Abby Johnson posted this tweet:

To which someone thoughtfully tagged: #MyBodyMyChoice. The joke cuts both ways: The libertarian arguments for liberal abortion are identical to the libertarian arguments against wearing a mask.

As for the "counter-revolutionary" side of Burke, I am reasonably confident that Democrats will give Republicans ample opportunity to charge that a cultural revolution is afoot. From the cranks who refuse to abandon the slogan "Defund the police!" even though they admit they do not actually want to defund the police, to the academics who "call out" those who fail the latest test of wokeness, to those so-called liberals who put the words religious liberty in scare quotes, apparently unaware that the doctrine of religious liberty is one of liberalism's greatest achievements, there are those on the left who, like the Jacobins of old, have a totalitarian itch that they love to scratch. The American people, in their wisdom, will resist any party that comes to be dominated by such faux liberals, but I am not sure the Democratic Party will be able to resist for long. Apres Biden, le deluge!

Burke was a contemporary of without being a child of the Enlightenment, but he differed from Johann Gottfried Herder, and Giambattista Vico and Joseph de Maistre in that he never crafted a full-blown philosophy against the Enlightenment: He resisted theory when it clashed with practice, and in this sense was a kindred spirit to America's pragmatic bent. He detested tyranny but worried that any violent overthrow of social custom invited tyranny as much as it might eradicate it. He also knew that more pedestrian human vices like greed and lust could oppress a people as easily as any theory. He was not a systemic thinker, and critics in his day and since have charged him with inconsistency. Certainly, if the Republican Party of the future needs a synthesis between the Enlightenment ideals of the Founding Fathers and the Christian faith espoused by their base, they will not find it in Burke or anywhere else. In the third century of modernity, we Christian moderns still await a new Aquinas who can fashion such a synthesis, or we need admit none can be fashioned.

Still, the Republican Party would have a better chance of regaining some semblance of a moral compass after this debacle of Trumpism if all of its leading members were to sit down and read O'Brien's biography of Burke, or read Burke himself. There really has never been a Burkean conservative party in this country, and maybe one is not possible. It is worth the effort, and it surely beats descending back into alt-right Trumpism.

Editor's note:Don't miss out on Michael Sean Winters' latest.Sign upand we'll let you know when he publishes newDistinctly Catholiccolumns.

Originally posted here:
The GOP's future? Ditch Trump and read Edmund Burke - National Catholic Reporter

We know what the symbols mean. So what is VicPol doing about it?

Police are supposed to protect all of us. Theyre some of the only civilians we allow to use violence in the name of peace and, from a young age, were taught that we can always go to them for help. But at times, their actions and the lack of condemnation from their superiors can make it seem like not everyone is, in fact, under their protection.

Victoria Police have been spotted with imagery associated with the far-right in the past 12 months, fuelling concerns of poor attitudes towards minorities from within the force.

Officers have been seen, and photographed, with white supremacist-associated imagery on their bodies, uniforms, and vehicles, even when tasked to work on racially sensitive events like Indigenous rights protests despite the symbols being banned or required to be covered up.

Thin Blue Line patches have been seen multiple times. Tattoos associated with far-right movements have also been spotted, as well as extremist memes on officers personal social media accounts. The thin blue line patch is an Australian version of the American pro-police and anti-Black Lives Matter symbol, which is said to symbolise support for police but has also now become synonymous with opposing Black Lives Matter and is flown at racist events. Donald Trump even adopted it to signify his opposition to Black Lives Matter.

Recently, a police officer was photographed handing a Thin Blue Line patch to a child to pose with in Chelsea, in Melbournes South East. A Facebook post characterises the interaction as the child earning his sergeants stripes, but the patch is clearly an Australian flag devoid of all colour but a thin blue line. Victoria Police told Junkee that Thin Blue Line patches were not allowed to be worn by officers.

In a response to Junkees questions about the incident, Victoria Police said the child was being handed a badge to wear to brighten his day. It did not respond to a question about whether or not VicPol approved of the banned patched being used as a prop.

One example of the patchs misuse was the Unite The Right in rally in Charlottesville, Louisiana, USA, where far-right protestors also flew confederate flags, chanted Jews will not replace us, and an alt-right supporter mowed down a group of counter protestors in his car.

Anti-racist activist Tom Tanuki said the Blue Lives Matter and the Thin Blue Line movements were hard to separate from racism.

Its a reaction and response to BLM in America. Its utilised in a way that sits alongside anti-BLM and anti-activist movements in the US, he said. Its increasingly being taken to be an anti-Black rights movements symbol. It symbolises police as the thin blue line between order and chaos.

It situates Black people as being the chaos. This is straightforward stuff, its sometimes outwardly racist but its more generally anti-social justice and activist.

Black Lives Matter is an anti-racism movement, specifically arguing for an end to racist policing. By wearing these patches at events related to BLM, police were sending a message, Mr Tanuki said.

Photo: Renters and Housing Union

Thin Blue Line patches were also spotted at the Djab Wurrung trees protests in October, where the Djapwurrung supporters were fighting to prevent the loss of irreplaceable cultural artefacts, what they say is genocide in motion. Police said they briefed officers on the ground about sensitivity, but only about the womens camp at the Djab Wurrung site and not about the racial conflict at the heart of the protest.

In Brisbane, a police officer was spotted wearing a Thin Blue Line patch at a September Black Lives Matter Rally following the death of Aunty Sherry in police custody. Queensland Police Force said he was told to remove it.

An email purported to be sent by VicPol management banned the wearing of the patch in response to the Queensland incident, citing its association with white supremacists and the far-right.

At the same Djab Wurrung protests, a police officer was spotted with a Valknut tattooed on his forearm. Police told Junkee offensive tattoos must be covered up, but did not respond to a question about the Valknut.

Photo: Renters and Housing Union

A Valknut is a symbol found on historical Viking artifacts, but its original pagan meaning can only be speculated upon.

Anti-hate group ADL says: Some white supremacists, particularly racist Odinists, have appropriated the Valknut to use as a racist symbol. Often they use it as a sign that they are willing to give their life to Odin, generally in battle.

The police officers tattoo appears alongside another which reads Valhalla, the mythical resting place of warriors who fall in battle.

However, ADL says that non-racist pagans can also use the symbol, and warn that the context it appears in should be considered.

Mr Tanuki said that the appearance of these two symbols was unlikely to be coincidental.I can imagine police didnt realise or dwell on the significance of it and that bloke and his edgelord tattoos, I find it unlikely at the end of the day that officer wouldnt know that significance, he said.

The officers in question have come there to send a message to protestors. The officers in question know what messages they are sending.

Mr Tanuki said to prevent the behaviour, higher-ups would need to act. They dont expect a bad reaction from their managers, he said. The officers are showing people what they think of their movements. If they wear a thin blue patch at an Indigenous sovereignty event, we know what they mean.

Late last year police officer Travis Gray was also spotted giving the OK hand gesture at the violent Blockade IMARC protests, where left-wing protestors attempted to prevent a fossil fuel and mining conference from going ahead.

The OK hand gesture has been coopted by white supremacists as a coded message meaning its OK to be white. Gray directed the sign to an Asian-Australian woman who was wearing a t-shirt that read immigrant in rainbow letters, she told Junkee.

Travis Gray noticed me looking and he started making faces at me, like taunting me. And then he gave me the OK symbol, she said. A couple of minutes later, he came up to me and said: you can take photos, you can take videos. It doesnt matter, nothing will happen. He said he was just checking if I was OK. It felt intimidating.

A Facebook profile belonging to Gray was discovered soon after and had posted far-right associated memes like Pepe the Frog and Wojak/Feels Guy.

At the time, Victoria Police said they were extremely disappointed and condemned the memes. When asked by Junkee if they had taken any further action against Gray, they said the protestors account was unsubstantiated.

Junkee sent a list of questions to Victoria Police about all the images seen in this story. It did not directly respond to each question.

On their own, the patches, stickers, and tattoos would normally not be cause for concern, but given Victoria Polices record of violence and over-policing towards minorities and protestors, and the added context that officers were reportedly warned about the patchs association with far-right ideologies, makes the imagery seem more sinister.

The Black Lives Matter movement in Australia is calling for accountability for the deaths in custody and over-policing of Indigenous people. To position this reasonable request as chaos as Mr Tanuki put it, shows how the officers may really feel. They may claim ignorance but it is nearly impossible to believe.

If policing is to survive the BLM reckoning and become a force for good for all Australians, officers cannot position themselves as an opposing force to those rightfully calling for justice.

Jim Malo is a journalist with an interest in politics and social justice. He tweets at @thejimmalo.

See the original post:
VicPol Has A Problem With Right-Wing Extremist-Associated Symbols - Junkee

Times-Union readers| Florida Times-Union

Republican Partys reputation is crumbling

before the eyes of many Americans

We are witnessing the demise of the Grand Old Party. And the Republican Party has earned the consequence they wrought.

The GOP enabled the dishonesty and ineptness of President Donald Trump while he tried to eliminate the Affordable Care Act without any real attempt at a substitute.

His administration separated babies from their parents at the border to set an example while making virtually no attempt to reunite them.

The gross mishandling and misrepresentation of the grave risks COVID-19 posed for the country serves as another reminder. Let's not forget the blocking of legislation in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Enabler-in-Chief; not the least of which was the final relief bill to innocent citizens who may be thrown out of their residences for lack of payment of rent and mortgages.

Let's recall the tax cut that mostly went to the richest Americans. There is the damage to the institutions and norms that have held our democracy together for over 200 years (with one notable exception). And the same can be said for the corporate tax cut, which helped the stock market, but left over 50 percent of the population in the lurch because they dont participate because they are too poor.

There is the politicization of the Justice Department by attempting to use the halls of justice to help friends (Roger Stone, General Flynn and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

And perhaps the worst transgressions on our traditions of fair play and decency involved hypocrisy of the most recent Supreme Court confirmation. No, it was not illegal, just morally reprehensible.

And the top prize for hubris and deceit are the attacks on the integrity of our voting processes without any evidence by Trump, whose only purpose is to sow dissent and open the doors to violence from his alt-right supporters should their party lose the presidential race.

The public will rightly recoil at these insults and attacks on our values and the institutions that keep us on the straight and narrow.

And it is for these reasons that the Republican Party will crumble under the pressure to retain credibility in the public's eyes. And it may well be that the punishment will last for a generation, as the American public recoils from what its leaders let happen to the country and their party in recent years.

Memories are very long for messing with our system of government to this degree for which so many have sacrificed so much except for Trump. He should leave the White House no later than Jan. 20th to the obscurity he so richly deserves.

Bob Fagin, Jacksonville Beach

I was raised as a Democrat but

the party I knew has left me

I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, and I with the rest of my family were brought up as Southern Democrats. Back then I was taught that a Democrat was a person who represented and fought for the working person. A person who stood up for the middle and lower class. A person who fought against government corruption and supported our military and the sanctity of life.

Republicans were viewed as old, fat, rich, white men sitting around their country club drinking scotch and reviewing stock market tickers.

Every morning at school, prior to class we stood with our hands over our hearts and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and remained standing through the playing of the "The Star-Spangled Banner."To not do so would be to invite a bloody nose at recess. My first presidential vote was cast for a peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter, as was my second.

Back then a man would be applauded for exposing government corruption and upholding the laws of the land.

Back then you depended on Huntley and Brinkley for honest non-biased news reporting.

A lot has changed since then.

Now Democrats justify the burning of the American flag and condone the kneeling of people during the playing of the national anthem.

Now Democrats openly invite illegal aliens to cross our borders and have sanctuary cities protecting them from deportation.

Now Democrats want to allow late-term abortion and state their reproductive health is being threatened by attempts to overrule Roe v. Wade. Just what is their definition of reproductive health? Isnt it the ability to give birth to a healthy child?

The Democrats have vowed to do away with the federal death penalty. How can Democrats be anti-death penalty but be pro-abortion?

The Democrats wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars attempting to impeach a president for shedding light on the corruption of the previous administration. They knew from the outset they could not win, yet proceeded to waste taxpayers' time and money anyway. The entire time they ignored Hillary Clintons false narrative of Russian collusion and Joe Bidens corruption while in office.

The Democrats and their media allies decide what they want you to see, hear or read. Honest journalism does not exist any longer. They have been reduced to a propaganda extension of the Democratic Party.

I watched with disgust as the Democratic Party condones rioting and looting, refusing to employ the police departments of their cities in stopping destruction of public and private property. Kamala Harris, probably the next vice president, tweeted support for a fund to bail out protesters, some of them violent.

The Democratic Party has become the party of The ends justifies the means. They have already shown that they will turn a blind eye to wrongdoing by their party members. They have spent the last four years undermining the current administration. They have refused bipartisan support on nearly every issue the president has worked for or enacted. The Democrats have spent $1 billion on this election. You cannot convince me that it is for the benefit of this country's citizens.

Is the Republican Party perfect? Not by a long shot. It still has corruption and deceit within its ranks. But they are more in line with my conservative views and ideology than what the Democratic Party now supports.

Ronald Segrest, Jacksonville

See the article here:
Letters: Republican Party is crumbling and a former Democrat explains why he left - The Florida Times-Union