It is nauseating to read the schedule for the Democratic Convention.

It gives names to the pile of scavenged shards left from the explosion of the Democrats' political bomb.  The fire of the bomb's long fuse has finally run its course.  But why is there a Democratic Convention at all, or, for that matter, a Democratic Party?  Many people believe that the parties, and hence their conventions, are required by the Constitution.  But this is not true.

Indeed, the truth is near to the opposite.  The Founders did not forget to include a requirement for political parties — what they called "factions" at the time — but carefully eschewed them.  Washington, especially, was fearful of factions.  Nevertheless, there were nascent parties even before the ninth state, New Hampshire, had approved the Constitution and brought the new government to life. 

The Founders may not have wanted parties, but they were overpowered by political nature.  During the raging debates over adoption, there were two factions, or parties, called the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.  The Federalists felt that each state, shorn of the protection of Great Britain and left in isolation all on its own, was too weak to defend itself.  They advocated for the strength of a union of states as offered by the proposed Constitution.  The Anti-Federalists feared too great an amassing of power, with the concomitant tendency to dictatorship, and urged the states to reject the Constitution.  Notably, Patrick Henry, of the immortal phrase "Give me Liberty or give me death," was an Anti-Federalist and did not vote for adoption.

The names of the parties underwent sequential changes.  Today, the Democrats are the descendants of the Federalists, and the Republicans are the descendants of the Anti-Federalists.

So now we are back at the point of beginning.  For better or for worse, there is a Democratic Party, they will start their convention on 17 August, and the first day will be devoted entirely to mini-conventions of their plethora of disjointed groups.  I have put in a capsule below a few of these more shocking, otherworldly groups.

In our history, some parties have self-destructed, and the time may be nigh for another one to do the same.  The Democrat Party is exhibiting the signs of being in its death throes!