My parents were lifelong Democrats. My mother sometimes volunteered at polling stations during primary and general elections. My father, a lifelong salesman with a great gift of gab, occasionally canvassed for various Democratic candidates.
That’s saying a lot considering that I grew up in Kansas, which once upon a time was about as ruby red Republican as a state could be. Today, Kansas is still classified as a red state, but its governor, Laura Kelly, is a Democrat. My parents, now deceased, would be thrilled.
As you might imagine, there was a lot of (mostly) good-natured partisan bantering and razzing during family get-togethers, of which there were many. I come from a long line of Jayhawkers, ninety percent of whom are hardshell Republicans.
My parents, on the other hand, belonged to the approximately ten percent who, as Democrats, were deemed by the other ninety percent as either misguided or irrational.
Even so, when I was growing up, political disputes between Republicans and Democrats—at least among the citizenry, if not the professional politicians—were mainly benign.
Fast forward to today. Political disputes and differences are anything but benign.
Democrats, especially, have embraced violence rather than debate and discussion when it comes to dealing with their Republican opponents.
Since they lost the House, the Senate, and the White House in the 2024 elections, the anguished Democrat base has decided violence is the only tactic it can employ against President Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress and the Supreme Court.
Leftists and socialists who now control the Democrat Party have encouraged rioting and attacks on federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Federal Bureau of Investigation officers.

It is no mystery why Democrats have lost their minds when it comes to these agencies. ICE, DHS, CBP, and FBI officers are enforcing laws enacted by Congress to remove some 12 million criminal and illegal aliens who invaded our country during the four years of open borders under the irresponsible Biden administration.
We all know why leftist and socialist Democrats kept our borders wide open and encouraged millions of unvetted migrants to enter our nation. Biden and his fellow socialists told migrants to “surge the border.”
Those migrants were the warm bodies who were to take up residence across the country, allowing the Census Bureau to count them and thereby increase the number of Democratic seats in the House that the party had lost when millions of middle-class Americans eschewed socialist policies for traditional American values.
The fact that Federal authorities are removing these invaders at a pace never expected has set Democrats’ hair on fire and sent many into a frenzy of dismay and distress.
The result is a flurry of hand-wringing and anguish by hair-brained leftists who see their policy of migrant voter replacement as a failed strategy.
Already, more than 1.5 million of these illegal migrants have “self-deported,” and hundreds of thousands more have been taken into custody and forcefully deported.
Now, with some 10,000 new ICE agents and staff about to be hired as a result of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill—a 50 percent increase—Democrats will see the numbers of illegal migrants ejected from our country only amplify.
As you might imagine, Democrats are beyond frustrated by this and the success Federal Agents are already having in capturing and deporting people who entered the U.S. illegally.
“Democratic members of Congress are facing a growing thrum of demands to break the rules, fight dirty, and not be afraid to get hurt,” a recent report in Axios said. “Growing anger has morphed into a disregard for American institutions, political traditions, and even the rule of law.”
One House Democrat even suggested, “What we really need to do is be willing to get shot” when visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies. “Our base is telling us that what we’re doing is not good enough … [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public.”
Another House Democrat told Axios that their “constituents have told them ‘Civility isn’t working’ and to prepare for ‘violence.”
Democrats got their wish. There has been blood.
At least 10 so-called “transtifa” Democrat activists (pictured above) wearing full black battle gear and carrying AR-15 rifles last week ambushed ICE agents in Alvaredo, Texas. Thankfully, they were arrested and indicted for the attempted murder of a federal law enforcement officer. Though the officer was shot in the neck, he survived.
In another violent attack, a Democrat armed with tactical gear and a rifle attempted to ambush border patrol agents and local police officers as they arrived at a CBP facility in McAllen, Texas. All the law enforcement officials involved in the incident survived, while the shooter was killed.
Both attacks were unnerving reminders of the target that Democrats have placed on the backs of law enforcement agents by repeatedly likening Trump’s deportation agenda to the holocaust and referring to ICE agents as “secret police” and the “modern-day Gestapo.”
Since those attacks, more violent riots have occurred in San Francisco and elsewhere in California. In Los Angeles, leftist activists threw rocks and fired guns at ICE agents attempting to enforce federal immigration law at a marijuana farm that employed illegal migrants–many of them unaccompanied children.
Naturally, the left and its legacy media mouthpieces framed the violent riots as a justified “action.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We are seeing a declared war against American law enforcement officers.
As someone once said, “In war, the first casualty is always the truth.”
And the truth is, Democrats are miserable and demoralized not only because they are out of power, but because President Trump has enjoyed a remarkable string of successes and the best 20 or so days for any president in modern history.
Trump has passed his landmark legislation, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which will transform and boost our economy. Additionally, the stock market has reached record highs, and illegal immigration that once gushed across the border by the millions has dropped to zero because our borders have been shut down tighter than a gnat’s arse.
The president has also targeted universities that do not support the Bill of Rights or Title IX protections for women. Universities today are the petri dishes from which leftist American revolutionaries are grown. All of these Trump successes have driven the left dotty.
Take, for example, California Gov. Gavin Newsom. As the violence was erupting at the Glass House Farms pot farm, where underage illegals were working, he condemned ICE for its raid.
Once again, when I think of my mother and father—both staunch Democrats—I know how disappointed they would be in the party they once venerated and supported.
When the new socialist Democrat Party and goofy socialist governors like Newsom and communist mayors like L.A.’s Karen Bass thwart Congress and the laws it has made that forbid unscrupulous employers from hiring illegal and cheap migrant workers to keep labor costs low, I know how disappointed my parents would be.

Yes, cheap migrant labor helps truck farmers and meat processing plants increase their profits, but does it benefit workers? No. It keeps their wages low. Democrats like Newsome once opposed illegal immigration on these grounds, but no more.
In effect, Democrats are in league with the drug cartels. How is that, you might ask?
Think about it. Migrant farm and factory workers won’t run away because they owe the cartels money. Essentially, cannabis farms like Glass House Farms are little more than slave labor plantations, and politicians like Newsom and Bass validate them by opposing ICE raids on them.
Fox News recently reported exclusively that the President of Glass House Farms has donated thousands of dollars to Democrats in California.
According to that report, “Co-founder, president, and board director Graham Farrar, who self-identifies on social media as residing in Santa Barbara, California, has made numerous political donations to the Santa Barbara County Democratic Central Committee’s federal political action committee and Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., according to Federal Election Commission records.
“California public campaign finance records reveal that he also donated $10,000 to Newsom in 2018, and his most recent public political donation was to California Democratic Assembly member Gregg Hart in July 2023.”
Is it any wonder, then, that Newsom, Bass, other Democrats, and our corrupt legacy media were incensed by the ICE raid on Glass House Farms in which some 300 illegal migrants were rounded up?
Should we be surprised that Democrats are encouraging violent attacks on Federal Agents as well as their unmasking and doxxing, leaving them and their families vulnerable to attacks by Mexican cartels and Democrat “transtifa” thugs?
When they can’t win elections, today’s socialist Democrats have only one response: violence. And now, with the crucial 2026 mid-term elections approaching, there is little doubt that the violence from leftist Democrats will intensify.
The Democrat Party is directionless and adrift. The party’s vicious minions will doubtless employ more and more violence to intimidate conservatives and other opponents.
If my parents are looking down on what’s happening in America today, and I bet they are, they undoubtedly can see that their cherished “Donkey Party” has not only lost its way, it has also lost middle America, if not all traditional Americans.

Could that fact be any more apparent when the Democrat Party’s candidate for New York City mayor is a professed communist, and former middle-of-the-road Democrats are rushing to support him? Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, also has a history of antisemitism in a city where some 2.1 million Jews live. Incredibly, early polls show that a significant number of Jews are prepared to support Mamdani, rather than a Republican mayoral candidate. Go figure.
While the Democratic Party continues its precipitous shift to socialism, it still has the implacable support of the dishonest legacy media. Its army of leftist propagandists masquerading as legitimate journalists continues to function as mouthpieces for the Democrats. The media will provide cover for the violent rhetoric of their Democrat masters and the lethal violence targeted at ICE and CBP agents.
If their violent attacks are successful and the left manages to retake Congress in the mid-term election, they will raise taxes, eviscerate the MAGA agenda, and impeach Trump.
Then, if socialist Democrats retake the White House in 2028, they will reopen the borders and allow another 15 million unvetted migrants to invade our country again.
When that happens, I hope my parents can ask Saint Peter if they can cancel their membership in the Democratic Party. Because one thing is for damned sure: this cabal of fetid socialism and deadly violence is not my father’s or my mother’s Democratic Party.
–30–
If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to ForeignCorrespondent and tell your friends to subscribe. “It’s free—what a deal!” If you’ve received this from a friend and would like to be added to our distribution list for future blog posts, simply enter your email in the notifications box to sign up:
https://ronaldyatesbooks.com/category/foreign-correspondent.
You can also find my commentaries on Substack at https://ronyates.substack.com/ and the American Free News Network at https://afnn.us.
Please feel free to comment: We genuinely love hearing from you!
I have often thought my dream job would be perched on a rooftop and whenever a rioter lit a Molotov cocktail I would fire one round to break it in their hand before they could throw it. I am fairly certain after a few of those the level of assaults would diminish substantially.