Puzzle posed by longtime Democrat voters           

It is foolish for Americans who've voted Democrat since the 1960s or '70s to persist in doing so, given that today's party bears nearly zero resemblance to the one that first attracted them.

Do they squander precious ballots for reasons of nostalgia, emotion, delusion, or uncritical brand loyalty to a party that has no use for them, save for as useful idiots?

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador on the tax-payer dime, to lavish adoration on recently (rightly) deported illegal immigrant criminal Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 

The senator never met with actual Maryland resident Patty Morin. Her daughter Rachel had tragically been raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant that Van Hollen and other Democrats had essentially given keys to the country.

Van Hollen joined with his Democrat comrades to oppose the Laken Riley bill, named for yet another victim of their brutal illegals. 

Democrats were wholly indifferent to testimony by Garcia's former girlfriend that he had savagely beaten her on numerous occasions. (The old Democrat Party opposed domestic violence. The new version does not.) She was sucessful in obtaining a restraining order against him. 

Liberals' ice-blooded contempt for women's safety did not surprise, given their eagerness to shoehorn biological men into female sports. 

Garcia had broken several other U.S. laws. But Democrats cared not. Nor were they given pause by his having having been found by two immigration judges to be an MS-13 gang-banger. (MS-13 was officially designated as a terrorist organization.)

ICE also determined Garcia was MS-13. As did local police and El Salvador, itself. But Democrats now cast their lots with criminals, not the lawful.

Decades ago, that party championed fine principles like racial unity, women's rights, peace, and the Constitution's guarantee to free speech. 

But today's party prioritizes those issues' diametrical opposites: DEI's poisonous messages of racial determinism and inherent group guilt; transgenderism's perils to girls and women; drowning out opposing speakers with contrived cacophonies; and blocking cameras, lest they capture unconstitutional wrongdoings. 

Are veteran Democrat lever-pullers' principles and ideals reflected by such loathsome phenomena? 

In earlier times, Democrats inveighed against wars. But today, bankrolled by the "industrial war complex" Republican Eisenhower cautioned of, they are mass-killings' loudest boosters and most enthusiastic funders.

In 2025, Democrats desperately seek the favor of wet-eared college subversives, themselves under the thrall of addle-pated professors, and scrambling for barricades to die upon - in the name of the glorious revolution.

Representatives of that party also once championed American pride, blue-collar interests, support for Jews, and the faith that Americans of all colors are unified by national patriotism, not divided by demographics. 

Today, though, such positions are anathema to Democrats. They sneer that America is inherently evil and focus on scant faults, rather than extolling our country's abundant brilliant positives - ones that rendered worldwide betterment. 

Democrats of the past clad themselves in working Americans' garb. Today, though, working-class voters increasingly mass under the Republican tarp (ask Teamster chief Sean O'Brien). They reject Democrat policies that have sent jobs overseas by the millions, devastated entire industries, and done dirt to our economy.

Elected Democrats cater to cash-bag globalist donors like Soros, Cuban, Gates, Zuckerberg, and Betos. (Too, there's the real possibility of foreign bigwigs' under-table Democrat donations.)

American campuses are a-crawl with masked, keffiyeh-wearing anti-semites whose physical attacks, filthy philosophy, and wanton destructiveness are winked at by tax-supported liberal administrators. 

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, never miss opportunities to vote against Israeli security and deny Jewish interests. The message they broadcast is ugly and requires no extended elucidation.

Longtime Democrat voters may not share such screaming diversions from their own past beliefs. Nevertheless, they do enable them with their ballots. Why are they unbothered by that?

When donkeys cry

Wife-beating El Salvadoran gangster Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was in America illegally, has code for "MS-13" tattooed on his knuckles. But his opportunistic Democrat advocates argue that signifies nothing. By that standard, an eye-mask, striped shirt, and bulging bag with a big dollar sign does not indicate criminality. Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador at taxpayer cost to commiserate with Abrego Garcia over margaritas. The liberal senator never met with, or even contacted, actual Maryland citizen Patty Morin; her daughter Rachel was assaulted and murdered by one of the illegals Van Hollen and other Democrats had effectively given the keys to our country. The Van Hollen publicity trek was quickly aped by additional Democrats thirsting for camera-time. Still more cynical sojourns may soon transpire. Representative Ayanna Pressley and four other congressional Democrats recently flew to a Louisiana prison, to clap arms about and be photographed with two Israel-hating agitators, including Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil's student Visa was revoked; he lied on his application, a deportable crime. During a 4/23 Hannity broadcast, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller noted acidically: "The Democrat Party has become the party of terrorists and illegal aliens. That is the party of today. Who does it sympathize with? Who does it fight for? Who does it move Heaven and Earth to protect? Illegal alien gang-members and foreign terrorists. "Let's talk just briefly about Tren de Aragua," Miller continued. "The vicious gang that drills holes in people's hands, chops off their fingers, murders them in cold blood. A gang, based on information that has been discovered by FBI, that is even plotting assassination attempts inside the United States of America." Lovely crowd with which liberals have chosen to keep company. Do not stagger back in shock if Democrats attempt construction of a time machine, which could enable them to pose for selfies with Charles Manson.