I was elected to public office as a Democrat, and it saddens me to see what has become of the Nebraska Democrat party.

My friend, the late Mike Dugan, was an example of how the Democrats used to think and vote.  He served as the NDP chairman.  Dugan was of the group I call the FDR/JFK Democrats.  But today's Nebraska Democrat party has been captured by a group of radical extremists who are completely disconnected from Nebraska voters and values.  I call them the Nebraska Jacobins.

During the French Revolution, the Jacobins were the most radical and extreme members of the French Assembly.  The Jacobins set up two religions: the Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being.  Today's Jacobins have set up the Cult of Net Zero Carbon and the Cult of Transgenderism.  Both are divorced from reality.

The longtime chairwoman of the NDP is Jane Kleeb.  Mrs. Kleeb is best known for her opposition to the Keystone Pipeline.  If it had been built, many rural Nebraska counties would have received millions in property tax money.  More importantly, the U.S. would have lower oil prices and energy security.  The primary beneficiaries of stopping the Keystone pipeline are OPEC and Russia.  Those people are not our friends.  When gasoline was over $4.00 per gallon last summer, Nebraskans certainly could have used a break.

I knew that the Nebraska Dems were off the rails when the party approved a motion calling Don Kleine, another friend and the Douglas County attorney, a white supremacist.  Mr. Kleine has served all of Douglas County with great distinction.  He quit the Democrat party after that disgraceful and dishonest action.

The main Jacobin leaders in the Unicameral (that is, Nebraska's Legislature) are Senators Machaela Cavanaugh, Megan Hunt, and Danielle Conrad.

Senator M. Cavanaugh has received much national media attention for opposing Senator Kathleen Kauth's L.B. 574, the Let Them Grow Act.  Cavanaugh's mantra has been "don't legislate hate."  Since L.B. 574 passed the first round of voting, the Nebraska Jacobins are filibustering every single bill.  They filed 742 motions on the remaining bills in the Unicameral.  Important legislative business has ground to a halt.

Senator Hunt said, "We are blowing up this session.  The session is over. ... Hating trans kids in Nebraska was more important to you than the rest of the session."  That's the talk of a vengeful radical.

Is L.B. 574 about hate?  What would the bill do, exactly?  It would prevent children, their parents, and unethical doctors from pretending to alter the sex of minors via surgery and powerful drugs.

Part of the reason Senator Hunt is willing to burn this legislative session to the ground is because her daughter is now her trans "son."  Nebraska Medicaid has refused four times to pay for the medical services to accomplish the transition.

Senator Machaela Cavanaugh said on the floor of the Unicameral that L.B. 574 is "genocide."  That's off-the-rails talk.  When the average person hears the word "genocide," he most likely thinks of the Holocaust, Rwanda, or Cambodia.  During the Holocaust, six million Jews, Catholics, Roma, and the developmentally disabled were intentionally murdered by the National Socialist Party of Germany.  The word "genocide" comes from the Latin cide, which means killing.  By passing L.B. 574, the State of Nebraska would not be killing anyone.

Jews were the primary victims of the Nazi Holocaust.  Every Nebraska Jew should be insulted by Cavanaugh's wildly inappropriate and wrong comparison of the Shoah to this proposed law.

So there you have it.  A small cadre of Democrat state senators are opposing the will of the vast majority of Nebraska voters.  These radical few Jacobins have gone so far as to filibuster every single bill to possibly stop a bill that would protect children.  That's undemocratic.  Today's Democrats want to sacrifice the health and future of kids on the altar of political dogma.  That's what the Cult of Transgenderism is all about.

Dave Begley is an Omaha lawyer who practices elder law, estate planning, and litigation.  He was educated by the Society of Jesus at Creighton University.

Image via Max Pixel.