(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party or candidate on the part of Newsmax.)
Former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard spoke last week at a Trump rally in Las Vegas, during which she described her departure from the Democratic Party: "I joined the Democratic Party over 20 years ago. ... And at that time, I saw a party that was the 'big tent' party."
That, according to Gabbard, is no longer true.
Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also left the Democratic Party — with which his family's name is practically synonymous — and ran as an independent this year before withdrawing and throwing his support behind former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy's former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, ex-wife of billionaire Google cofounder Sergey Brin, is a longtime megadonor to Democrats. Shanahan is now funding brilliantly crafted videos defending the MAGA and MAHA ("Make America Healthy Again") movements.
Kennedy's, Gabbard's and Shanahan's endorsements of Trump are further proof that Trump's Republican Party is now the country's "big tent" party.
Trump's candidacy is not only supported by highly visible individual Democrats but by impressive swaths of once reliably Democrat voters. A recent NAACP poll shows Trump with support from over a quarter of Black men under 50; less than half of that demographic plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Summer polls by Rasmussen and Forbes/HarrisX show Trump either tied with or slightly ahead of Harris with Hispanics, a group Democrats have traditionally won by 30 or 40 points. Even Jews are supporting Trump in record numbers; many were likely prompted to switch candidates after witnessing vicious antisemitic attacks on college campuses over the past year, and the lackluster response of Democrats.
Then there are the endorsements from the working class: The U.S. Border Patrol union endorsed Trump, as did the Fraternal Order of Police. The United Auto Workers' leadership endorsed Harris, but union President Shawn Fain admitted that many UAW members would likely vote for Trump.
And in a stunning development, the Teamsters did not endorse Harris. While the Pravda press is painting this as a no-harm-no-foul situation for Harris, Teamsters President Sean O'Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, and internal polling suggested overwhelming support for Trump among union members.
So, what does the national Democratic Party of 2024 stand for? Endless wars and endless profits for multinational defense contractors, which have unimaginable wealth created by mass, mechanistic death; support for Big Pharma, coercion, widespread censorship and weaponization of the legal system against dissenters.
Just this week, Democratic matriarch Hillary Clinton opined that Americans who spread "propaganda" should be sued civilly or even imprisoned.
How bitterly ironic, given that Clinton has defended countless positions that have all been revealed to be false or outright lies: She insisted that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election; that was a lie (that her campaign created).
She echoed the claim that the damning information on Hunter Biden's laptop was only "Russian misinformation"; that was a lie.
When she was secretary of state, Hillary claimed not to have put confidential material at risk by using a private server for official government business; that was a lie. She told the entire country that the bloody attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that took the lives of three U.S. servicemen and Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was spontaneously prompted by some sloppily produced video; that was a lie.
In other words, Clinton spreads misinformation and disinformation on a regular basis. But she wants the U.S. government to prosecute Americans who dare to fight for — and reveal — the truth.
Clinton knows full well that most Americans are not Trump; they cannot afford to spend millions defending themselves in a criminal or even civil action. The threat alone will be enough to silence the majority of people.
And in that silence, corruptocrats like Clinton can lie with impunity, protected by a bovine and compliant press, while they aggregate their power and wealth at Americans' (and others') expense.
In Springfield, Ohio, and across America, cities and states are being overwhelmed by the demands of millions of illegal immigrants. But the reaction of the Democratic Party (and their shills in the media) is to smear as "racists" the citizens who dare complain about the crime, the culturally offensive practices and the diversion of taxpayer funds from our poor, our homeless, our unemployed and our veterans to people from other countries.
The Democratic Party is also the party of hobbled energy production and dependence upon other nations — including hostile regimes — for our energy needs. It is the party of skyrocketing fuel costs, record inflation and crushed purchasing power.
It is the party of shoplifting and retail theft, of closed stores and dwindling downtowns. It is the party of no bail, released criminals and violence in our cities.
It is the party of abortion on demand, through all nine months of pregnancy. And if the Democrats get their way (and enough seats in Congress), it will not merely be a matter of women who want abortions having them.
The same people who defended lockdowns, forced vaccinations and curfews enforced by the paintball police will be demanding that doctors perform abortions, mutilating "gender affirmation" surgeries and euthanasia against their will and in contravention of their Hippocratic oath, their philosophy of medical care and their religious beliefs.
So it's not as if the Democratic Party doesn't have its own broad array of constituencies.
They have their arms open wide for weapons manufacturers, foreign oligarchs, the pharmaceutical industry, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, renegade prosecutors, censors, media propagandists, antisemites, criminals, illegal aliens, never-Trump establishment Republicans and people more offended by Trump's mean tweets than they are by a police state and economic collapse. Plus most of Hollywood and Taylor Swift.
But pretty much everyone else is voting for Trump.
Laura Hollis is an attorney and university professor who has taught courses in law and business for more than 30 years. Her legal publications have appeared in the Temple Law Review, Cardozo Law Review and the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. She is a nationally syndicated columnist whose work has been featured in dozens of print and online publications. Read reports by Professor Hollis — More Here.