One Wednesday evening during prime time, delegates to the Democratic National Convention were addressed by an illegal alien demanding passage of the DREAM Act amnesty. Her appearance was enthusiastically cheered by the party faithful.
Benita Veliz, the young lady who spoke to the convention, was sympathetic enough. But the rousing applause was not really for her. It was a demonstration of the contempt that the Democratic leadership (as opposed to millions of rank and file Democrats around the country) hold for our immigration laws. To the Democratic Party machinery, illegal aliens are heroes and means by which they hope to transform the political, cultural and social fabric of the nation.
By contrast, God is not nearly as popular among the convention delegates. On Tuesday, delegates were asked to re-include mention of God in the party’s platform. References to God, which appeared in previous platforms, were omitted from this year’s document – a fact that party leaders belatedly realized would not play well with many voters.
The amendment, adding God to the platform, required a two-thirds approval from the delegates. When the convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, called for a voice vote, it was clear to everyone in the hall that the motion fell significantly short of the two-thirds necessary. Villaraigosa tried two more times, with similar results before he finally exercised his prerogative as chairman to declare God the winner. (For the record, the re-inclusion of God in the platform was coupled with language reinstating the Democratic Party’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – something that was even less popular among the delegates.)
Even more than the issues of the role of religion in the public arena, or illegal immigration, the disparate reactions of the delegates to Ms. Veliz and to the amendment to the party’s platform speak volumes about the growing chasm between the political and cultural elite and the vast majority of Americans. What the nation has witnessed over the past several days was outright disdain for the beliefs and values held by the majority of Americans…and it is becoming less and less subtle all the time.