When it comes to the two major parties in our political system, I am not shy about my disdain for the Democrats. They have become a festering, open sore on the body politic, a group of radicals who have weaponized government authority, openly support Marxist ideology, embrace irrational science, demonize half their fellow-citizens, and drive far-fetched conspiracy theories as far as they can without concern for the damage it has done to our nation.

I came to this conclusion over time and reluctantly. I grew up with just a basic awareness of politics, knowing that there were Democrats and Republicans with the occasional third-party candidate thrown in. I understood that, in general terms, Democrats were the party of liberals and big government, whereas the Republicans were conservatives who favored smaller government.

I assumed that both parties, while having different ideas about how to move the country forward, had the best interests of its citizens in mind. If you had asked me whether one party was more patriotic than another, I would’ve said I believed members of both parties were patriotic. I couldn’t imagine that anyone was indifferent to being an American.

It wasn’t until the turn of the century that I began to notice that the differences between the parties were becoming much sharper and more partisan. I also noticed that it was the social issues that seemed to be the cause of the sharpest divisions. Abortion, gay rights, illegal immigration, racial inequality, and the separation of church and state had always been points of differentiation, but now they were becoming bright red lines of political demarcation.

As we moved into the new millennium, we were rocked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush administration. There was strong support for and then strong opposition to the wars.

Then came the Obama years—and that’s when some of what I intuitively felt seemed to break into the open.

As I watched, there were unmistakable signs that the Democrats were moving away from what we might consider historical norms.

For instance, as soon as he took office, Obama embarked on an “apology tour.” In less than 100 days, he had apologized on three continents to nearly 3 billion people in Europe, the Muslim world, and the Americas for what he saw as America’s sins. “America has shown arrogance”; “We have not been perfect”; “Our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight”; “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history” and “Guantanamo … is a rallying cry for our enemies.”

There may be a bit of truth in those statements, but the net effect of saying that out loud to our allies and by extension, to our enemies, is to weaken our standing in the world, not strengthen it. Apologizing for things we have done is an act of humiliation. We must be assertive on the national stage as a world power, not diminutive.

Then there were his comments at different times that reflected his disdain for traditionally-minded Americans. “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Or, “Lest we get on our high horse […] remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” Again, there may be some truth in these statements, but they are not defining characteristics of Americans or Christianity.

When Obama was up for re-election in 2012, the Democratic National Convention took place in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Democrats removed references to God in the platform and stripped out the affirmation that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. They were only added back when the public learned about it, but that fact that they were taken out made an indelible impression on me.

Then came the 2016 election with Hillary Clinton, who said, “You […] could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables … The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. […] Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.” I was not a Trump supporter at the time, but I was so shocked that she would say something so offensive that I created a “Deplorable Me” image for my social media banner.

Then, in a surprise that no one saw coming, Trump was elected and the Democrats seemed to have lost their minds. They pushed the Russian collusion theory, investigated Trump four ways from Sunday, impeached him on flimsy and purely partisan grounds, and, we’ve since discovered, our law enforcement agencies, aided and abetted by Obama and Joe Biden, were weaponized to undermine the Trump presidency. The only collusion we can find was between the White House, DOJ, FBI and CIA.

Let’s not forget “the squad” made up of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. The inexperienced junior reps propose extreme programs (like eliminating airplanes and farting cows) and make anti-Semitic statements. AOC openly calls for Socialism and supported avowed Socialist and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

These are only a few of the things that I’ve watched as the Democratic Party has veered to the left. I didn’t mention all the calls for violence from party members like Maxine Waters who told a crowd, “If you see anybody from [Trump’s] cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. You push back on them. Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!” I didn’t mention Dianne Feinstein’s attack on 7th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith, telling her that “the dogma lives loudly within you” and represented a concern to her.

All of these are examples of an increasingly hostile and deeply partisan anti-American (speaking of “dogma”) dogma that now expresses itself in the destructive “protests” and riots throughout the country. The Democratic Party has become a dumpster fire of impulsive brats and unserious poseurs floating down Main Street, USA. They should never be trusted with the levers of power again.