American political history is full of cautionary tales about parties that crashed and burned because they got too extreme, too divided, or just couldn’t keep up with the times. Think of the Federalists, the Whigs, or smaller players like the Liberty Party—they all fell apart when they doubled down on rigid ideas or let infighting take over.
Right now, the Democrat Party is staring down a similar cliff, dragged toward the edge by neo-Marxist progressives who are obsessed with ideological purity, identity politics, and rhetoric that divides more than it unites. Add to that the Left’s troubling history with inflammatory propaganda and political violence—including high-profile assassinations—and you’ve got a recipe for a party in serious trouble, not to mention a nation teetering on the brink of chaos.
Back in the 1790s, the Federalists tanked because their elitist, pro-British stance turned off everyday voters. They loved to paint their opponents as wild-eyed radicals, setting the stage for divisive political attacks. The Whigs, who came together in the 1830s to push back against Andrew Jackson, fell apart because they couldn’t bridge their internal divides over slavery. Smaller groups like the Liberty and Free Soil parties fizzled out because they were so laser-focused on one issue that they couldn’t connect with a broader crowd.
The pattern is clear: get too rigid, let factions run wild, lose touch with what people want, and your party’s days are numbered. Political violence, like assassinations and threats, often hung over these eras, showing just how dangerous ideological extremism can get—a lesson to which today’s Democrats appear to be deaf.
The Left has a long track record of using propaganda to smear opponents, not just as wrong but as downright evil. In the Progressive Era, radical labor groups painted business owners as heartless exploiters, sometimes sparking riots or strikes. By the 1960s and 70s, Leftist activists were erroneously calling conservatives and cops fascists, which fueled campus chaos and even violence. Take the 1969 assassination attempt on a police official by the Black Panther Party or the 1970 bombing of the University of Wisconsin’s Sterling Hall, which killed a researcher—both tied to Leftist ideologies that thrived on demonizing their enemies. Today’s neo-Marxist progressives are playing a similar game, using rhetoric that turns disagreements into moral crusades.
When it comes to political violence, the Left’s history is grim. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, was gunned down by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marxist obsessed with communist ideals and opposed to US policies. In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, a Democrat senator, was killed by Sirhan Sirhan, whose motives tied into anti-Israel views and Leftist revolutionary fervor. Fast forward to 2024, and Donald Trump narrowly escaped two assassination attempts: one in July at a Pennsylvania rally, where a bullet grazed him, and another in September at his Florida golf course, where Ryan Routh, a man with Leftist activist ties, took aim. Then, in 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University in what authorities called a politically motivated attack. These incidents, while not directly ordered by the Democrat Party, its leadership, or the elite within their ranks, point to a dangerous pattern of Leftist rhetoric that dehumanizes opponents and fuels violence.
Starting in the 1990s, the Democrat Party began sliding into a new kind of progressivism. Think tanks and intellectuals pushed hard for radical economic redistribution, identity politics, and heavy-handed regulations, often framing dissenters as morally bankrupt. Barack Obama’s presidency, sold as pragmatic, gave this shift a big boost. Policies like Obamacare and massive federal spending empowered the party’s radical wing, while opponents were brushed off as selfish or bigoted. It’s the same old Leftist playbook: divide, demonize, repeat.
Under Joe Biden, these neo-Marxist ideas took center stage. Policies like the Green New Deal and sprawling social programs pushed away moderates and working-class voters who used to be the party’s backbone. Worse, the rhetoric—labeling dissent as racism, fascism, or plain ignorance—shut down debate and ramped up division. It’s a modern echo of the Left’s historical tactic of turning policy fights into moral battles, and it’s tearing their party apart.
The fallout is hard to miss. Democrats have taken a beating in state and federal elections, losing ground because voters aren’t buying their increasingly radical pitch. Political violence is also spiking—think of the 2022 plot to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, driven by Leftist anger over ideological issues, or the recent attacks on Trump and Kirk. This mirrors what happens when extremist rhetoric takes hold: parties fracture, and violence creeps in.
Like the Anti-Masonic or Free Soil parties, neo-Marxist progressives are so fixated on their vision of a perfect society that they ignore practical governance. History isn’t kind to that approach—it leads to electoral wipeouts and, too often, social unrest, culminating in violence. The Democrats are on that path and—in fact—far down that road, prioritizing factional loyalty over broad appeal.
If the Democrats want to survive, they need to act fast and cut ties with their neo-Marxist wing. Centrists and pragmatists have to take the wheel, focusing on policies that speak to working families, small-business owners, and moderates—not just ideologues with purity tests. That means ditching the divisive rhetoric and building a coalition that actually solves problems.
History doesn’t play favorites with parties that let radicals call the shots. The Federalists, Whigs, and others learned that the hard way, collapsing under extremism and division. The Democrats, now in the grip of neo-Marxist progressives who lean on demonizing propaganda and are linked to a history of political violence, are at a crossroads. If they don’t break free—if they don’t cleave the neo-Marxists from their ranks, they’re headed for irrelevance, internal collapse, and a legacy tied to the chaos their rhetoric invites.
The ghosts of failed parties are watching, and the Democrats can’t afford to ignore them.
When we come back, our segment on America’s Third Watch, broadcast nationally from our flagship station WGUL, AM860 and FM93.7 in Tampa, Florida.
In Closing…
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That’s our deep dive into the Democrat Party’s perilous dance with neo-Marxist progressives, whose ideological rigidity and divisive rhetoric echo the missteps of doomed parties like the Federalists and Whigs.
History shows that extremism, factionalism, and dehumanizing propaganda—linked to violent acts like the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Charlie Kirk, and the assassination attempts on President Trump—spell disaster.
The Democrats must reject this radical wing, embrace pragmatism, and rebuild a coalition that speaks to everyday Americans, respects the rule of law, and wholeheartedly—and genuinely—rejects both violent and demonizing rhetoric and acts of political violence. If they don’t, they risk collapse and a legacy heaped onto the other carcasses of the doomed political parties of American history.
Until next time…
