When and why I stopped voting for Democrats. They have betrayed their principles.

Democratic process

Now that the 2024 Democratic Convention will fade into memory, I want to draw attention to a previous one, also held in Chicago. No, not the 1968 one that has received all the attention, but the one in 1996.

I bring this up because I wrote an open letter in the Chicago Sun-Times to convention delegates about why I stopped voting for Democrats. I didn’t leave them, they left me by betraying just about everything they stood for when I started voting in 1964.

As I read this, I am struck by just how much some things haven’t changed about the party. I didn’t know back then if I was being prescient. But it’s scary that the party has become so detached from its footings. This op-ed column reads almost like it could have been written today.

Thank you old friend, Cal Skinner, for discovering the clipping while you were cleaning out your basement.

Here it is:

Democratic process

A political party turned sour, starting with Vietnam and ending with Bill Clinton. Dedication to civil rights turned into celebration of incivility.

August 25, 1996 | Chicago Sun-Times (IL)

Author/Byline: Dennis Byrne | Page: 41 | Section: EDITORIAL

735 Words

An open letter to Democratic delegates:

Maybe you'd like to know why I voted for an unbroken string of Democratic presidential candidates, from LBJ to Michael Dukakis - but no more. Perhaps you'd be interested in why my votes once helped send liberals like Abner Mikva, Paul Simon and Paul Douglas to Congress - but no longer.

It started in the '70s, when I passionately agreed that young lives shouldn't be sacrificed to solve someone's problems a world away. But then noticed how you extended, not your superior compassion, but your scorn to young people whose sense of duty led them to serve in Vietnam.

Or maybe it started when I noticed your waning interest in peace issues after the draft ended, and you no longer had to serve. And that today, it is a Democratic president, like the two Republicans before him, who leads us into yet another foreign military incursion.

You lost me after I cheered Simon and other liberals for battling the 1980s budget deficits, but then saw so many Democrats take a dive on their own president when he tried to reduce the burden we're heaping on our grandchildren.

You're for an activist government, intervening to protect the innocent and helpless, except when it comes to, for example, standard public health measures designed to protect infants from AIDS. You're for the complete disclosure of all risks, except when it comes to "choice."

You raged against a Supreme Court nominee, Clarence Thomas, for his alleged character deficits, but ruled out the same test for your presidential nominee. You condemned Thomas for once allegedly mentioning to a female subordinate a pubic hair on a can of Coke, but raised not a peep about a president who once allegedly exposed himself to a female subordinate. I guess that means talking about pubes is worse than showing them.

For you the right to privacy is absolute, unless you're a Republican whose FBI file is being scrutinized by a Democratic White House.

Once I was moved by the impassioned pleas of Martin Luther King Jr. and Hubert Humphrey that we should judge each other by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. Now you sketch elaborate legalities about why some people of preferred color get to go to the head of the line.

You're for free expression and direct action, unless it is for protesters outside abortion clinics. You claim to have an optimistic and democratic faith in the people, yet you increasingly turn to the courts to impose your views on them.

You lecture the opposition for their meanspirited attacks, yet a poll shows that former Texas Gov. Ann Richards remains one of your favorite speakers, thanks to her meanspirited attack on George Bush four years ago. You demand civility in all respects, yet require that uncivil art that deeply offends people of faith be subsidized. You demand inclusion, but demean those who express "traditional, middle class values."

For generations, you have fought to expand the definition of rights and citizenship - for minorities, women, the poor, the voiceless and the helpless. Yet you oppose granting even the slightest of rights to the poorest, most voiceless and weakest among us - the viable fetus. You demand that not a single child among us suffer the abuse of an uncaring society. Yet, you are unmoved that "only" a few thousand viable, late-term fetuses are aborted each year.

Despite your limitless compassion, you came late to realizing that in a crime, the victim deserves as much sympathy as the criminal deserves punishment.

You really lost me, though, when my children, now grown, had to confront a world of your preference, in which self-gratification and choice are their own virtues, superior to justice, truth and giving. You go on about the village it takes to raise children, but until recently, had little criticism for an entertainment industry that profited by corroding our children's minds.

Despite all that, I still agree with the fundamental communitarian concepts embraced by your party, including the belief that an unguided and unregulated economy is no guarantee of the common good. But your heightened claims of compassion too often simply mask the growing strain of libertarianism and self-absorption that grips the party.

Maybe you think I've changed more than you. Maybe you can do without me. I'm sorry that it's so.

Dennis Byrne is a member of the Sun-Times editorial board. E-mail: dbyrne@suntimes.com