By Douglas V. Gibbs ——Bio and Archives--September 10, 2024

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The Republican Party has largely lost its way during my lifetime. The Democrats have become straight out communists, as realized over the last couple of decades. As one moves left, so does the other.

The left-right paradigm is not even accurate, as portrayed by the media and the political class. In order to be “on the right,” one must believe in a smaller and more limited government than the Constitution offers. By my last calculations, just about every political ideology and political movement or party operates to the left of the Constitution, aside from Anarchy.

Ronald Reagan famously explained during his A Time for Choosing speech in 1964, “I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up and down – [up] man’s old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”

The Political Spectrum originated from the French Legislature around the time approaching the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. During that time, in the French legislature those who agreed with the monarchy, supported the State Church, and disagreed with making any change sat on the right of the auditorium; those who sought a secular and more collective system of government and pushed for radical change sat on the left. The moderates parked their indecisive rears in the middle.

America, however, was established without an aristocracy, and the Constitution was specifically written not to give any special benefits to any one group, especially a group of aristocratic nobles. There was never an established Church on a countrywide level, and the First Amendment specifically forbids that Congress ever makes any law establishing any church as the country’s official religion. We have never entertained having a monarchy, a theocracy, nor any other kind of collective authoritarian system. As for the secular part, while the marriage of government and religion was forbidden by the First Amendment, the early Americans embraced Christianity – the politicians largely prayed, and the pastors largely preached politics in their sermons from the pulpit. The United States, through the Constitution and its cultural influences, found a........

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