Cal Thomas: Democrats now and then

Cal Thomas, Tribune Content Agency on Jun 30, 2026

Following last week’s primary elections in which the rise of Democrat-Socialist candidates alarmed many longtime Democrats, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) read a list of things he said those far-left candidates stand for. To conservatives, and Independents, the list sounded like a grand jury indictment.

Johnson said the Democrat-Socialist effort to take over the party and re-fashion it in their image is not limited to deep blue New York City, but is surfacing around the country, especially among younger people who have never had to live under these systems, mostly because they have been taught little about their cruelty and failures.

Johnson said: "Across the country, Democrats have candidates winning primaries and rising through the ranks.” He said there were many more than the few he mentioned. He cited Sacramento City Council member and former congressional candidate Mai Vang. Videos resurfaced showing Vang refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and intentionally turning her back on the American flag during municipal meetings.

Johnson also mentioned Adam Hamawy, a New Jersey Democrat seeking to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. The New York Post reported Hamawy once volunteered in Bosnia with a Chicago-based nonprofit whose offices were raided by the government in 2002 after it was determined to be a front for al-Qaeda. Hamawy was born in Egypt and was a combat surgeon in the Iraq War. He had promoted his time interning in 1994 for the now-defunct “Benevolence International Foundation.” (BIF) The U.S. Treasury Department designated BIF as a financier of terrorism due to its financial and operational associations with Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

“(Joanne) Mendoza in Arizona wants to decriminalize trans prostitution,” Johnson said. “Apparently, that's the thing.” Johnson added that Democrat Iowa congressional nominee and State Representative Lindsay James, “wants to apologize for being white.” Rebecca Bennett, a New Jersey Democrat running for a House seat, said she “stopped going to church” because there were too many people there who voted for Donald Trump. Johnson said State senator and U.S. House candidate Sarah Trone Garriott, who is also an ordained Lutheran minister, participated in a satanist wedding in Iowa.

Other Democrats want to erase the border, empty the prisons, abolish ICE, pack the Supreme Court and do other things that would guarantee Democrats hold power forever. Too many are antisemitic and hate Israel.

Johnson said, “This is just a sampling” of how the Democrat Party is being hijacked by people who hate and want to destroy America. He might have also mentioned biological men playing on biological women’s teams and sharing locker rooms and bathrooms with them. Those issues were losers for Democrats in the 2024 election.

Contrast this nonsense with the Democrat Party of John F. Kennedy who was for lower taxes and an ardent anti-communist. Labor Unions, though largely supportive of Democrats, were once strongly pro-American. Public schools once taught the real history of America, opened the day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America (not foreign flags) and were allowed to pray and even read from the Bible until the Supreme Court ruled prayer and Bible reading unconstitutional. How has that worked out as anti-capitalist teaching and poor achievement in math, science and reading are now the norm in many schools? Did I mention growing violence in especially inner-city public schools and in the streets among teens?

Andrew Jackson is often credited with founding the Democrat party in 1820. T he party’s principles then included agrarianism, states' rights (code for slavery), limited federal government, and opposition to corporate and banking monopolies. Such were those principles until the early 20th century when things began to change – some for the better like the battle for civil rights and Social Security, and some not so great, such as higher taxes and bigger government.

As the saying goes: “This is not your grandparents’ Democrat Party.” It has clearly gone off the rails.

========

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I've Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America" (HumanixBooks).