Marc A. Thiessen for 8-22-24

In many ways, attending the Democratic National Convention as a Republican is like stepping through a portal in time to the Democratic Party of old.

For example, I vividly recall a time when Democrats supported border fencing. In 2013, every Senate Democrat voted for a bill that required the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the southern border — until Donald Trump came along and lengthy border barriers became anathema for Democrats.

Well, guess what? Here in Chicago, Democrats are using miles of fencing to secure the border surrounding the United Center to keep anti-Israel protesters out. They’ve suddenly rediscovered that fences work! In fact, they’ve added additional layers of fencing after protesters succeed in breaching the first layer. If they were as efficient in securing the southern border as they are in securing their convention, border security might not be competing with the economy as the top issue for voters in the 2024 election.

The Democrats of old also used to support law enforcement and public safety. It was Joe Biden who authored the 1994 crime bill that put tens of thousands of additional police officers on the streets. But in 2020, many Democrats embraced the movement to “defund the police” — including Kamala Harris. “This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” Harris said on a June 9, 2020, radio interview, adding that U.S. cities were “militarizing police.”

Well, guess who is securing the perimeter of the Democratic convention? The police! Democrats have brought in thousands of officers — many of them “militarized” — from Chicago and other cities to secure the convention site. People are boarding up shops in Chicago, but here inside the convention we are safe thanks to the thin blue line securing our perimeter. Thanks, Chicago PD!

I also recall a time when Democrats had no problem with voter ID. In the 1990s, they thought the best way to increase the number of voters was to have them register when they applied for driver’s licenses and state IDs, so Bill Clinton signed the 1993 “Motor Voter” law. In 2014, Clinton endorsed the idea of adding photos to Social Security cards to make it easier for minority voters who don’t have other forms of ID to vote.

But in 2022, Biden accused Republicans who oppose Democratic efforts to pass legislation that would eliminate state voter ID laws of standing with George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. Well, guess what? Delegates can’t get into the Democratic National Convention to vote for their nominee without an ID. In fact, they need a special Secret Service photo ID just to get past the perimeter, and then more credentials to access the arena, and even more to reach the convention floor. So, Democrats think it’s fine to require ID for delegates to choose their nominee, but not for Americans to vote for president of the United States.

But there is one area where the Chicago Democrats bear no resemblance to the Democratic Party of old. I remember a day when Democrats used to treat abortion as a necessary evil that should, in Clinton’s famous phrase, be “safe, legal and rare.” But here in Chicago, abortion is something to be celebrated. Democrats dedicated much of the first night of the convention to abortion. Harris, their nominee, became the first vice president to campaign by visiting an abortion clinic. And Planned Parenthood actually has a mobile van set up outside the convention that is providing free abortions and vasectomies for those who want them. You read that right: If you come to the DNC, not only can you call for greater abortion access, but you can actually get one, too.

Which just goes to show — despite the concessions to reality on fences, police and voter ID for the Democratic elites’ personal comfort at the convention — this still isn’t your father’s Democratic Party.