The Democrats' obstinate refusal to fund a physical barrier on our southern border is the starkest illustration yet that they are no longer a political party dedicated to the protection and prosperity of the United States. The party has been captured by cultural Marxists who are radically hostile to America's founding principles, its history, and its people. It's no exaggeration to recognize the reality that the Democratic Party is engaged in an ideological war against the historic American nation, which many of the party's members despise.
Post-Civil War Democrats fashioned themselves as champions of America's working classes and defenders the freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights. Those Democrats were patriotic and believed that while the founders' promise had yet to be fully realized, their ideals of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were profound and sacred truths.
That all changed beginning with the cultural revolution of the 1960s, as cultural Marxists began their long march to take over America's universities, media, courts, and popular culture. These Democrats fancied themselves revolutionaries who believed that because of its flaws, America was irredeemable. Their motto was "tear it all down." While tattered remnants of those old-style Democrats survive on the margins, they are no longer an animating force within the party.
Committed civil libertarians were also jettisoned by the Democrats. Once champions of free speech, the Dems now work in myriad ways on college campuses, in popular culture, and on social media to censor opposing points of view, often through violence and intimidation.
Second Amendment rights are likewise under constant assault from the Democrats, who know that an unarmed, docile populace is a prerequisite for state control. And Fourth Amendment rights to privacy have been so violated as to now be rights in name only.
The Dems have filled the void created by the abandonment of these constituencies and once cherished beliefs with a toxic stew of grievance and identity politics. They've cobbled together a coalition of people who believe that government is their salvation and that any shortfall of their own is the fault of an oppressive, bigoted America.
Where once they believed in equal rights, they now push racial preferences and quotas. Where once they believed in free enterprise and market capitalism, they now openly advocate socialism. Belief in strong, traditional families has been replaced by advocacy of redefining marriage and men in women's sports and bathrooms. Once antiwar, they now openly advocate for endless, globalist wars of no discernible national interest for America's young men and women to fight and die in.
The problem with all this is that America is still marginally a traditionally conservative nation, and none of these leftist policies enjoys majority support outside liberal coastal and big-city bastions. So the new Democrats are pretending desperately to be the Democrats of old just long enough to complete the transformation of the nation to fit their Marxist ideology.
The way Democrats mean to complete the transformation is through mass immigration—both legal and illegal. They have been importing a new electorate that has little history, understanding, or appreciation of free enterprise and civil rights. These new voters are more concerned with day-to-day economic survival than "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"—ironically because of the very socialist governments they are fleeing.
This is the reason why the Democrats are so adamantly opposed to a physical barrier on the border—not because they believe that it doesn't work, but because they know that it does.
This section is courtesy of the Jim Daws American Thinker article in January 2019 titled “These Are Not Your Grandfather's Democrats.”