Cyanide, Weak Sauce, and Your Ballot: A Brief Political Commentary on the 2024 Party Platforms

Written by Ecce Verum

IFI recently produced a document comparing the stances of the Democrat and Republican party platforms on eight major political issues.

If you’re unsure where to begin in evaluating the political options in front of you, I’d recommend the IFI Voter Guide as a good place to start.

There’s no commentary, no analysis, just direct quotes from each of the parties on abortion, sexuality, immigration, the judicial system, religious liberty, education, the economy, and safety (either foreign or domestic).

The document itself reports the party stances without added commentary, but if you’ve read any of my past articles you’ll know that I rarely write on anything without including analysis of my own. And this document definitely gives me some things to analyze.

So if you’re the kind of person who particularly enjoys listening to the color commentators while the game is running, read on.

If not, then let me give you my thoughts in a nutshell first: in my opinion, the Republican agenda ranges from “umm, that’s a bit iffy,” to “seriously, that’s flat-out weak sauce,” to “okay, though, that’s actually a pretty God-honoring idea.” On the other hand, the Democrat agenda ranges from “hmm, that’s better than what you used to say,” to “c’mon, not that woke talking point again . . . ” to “okay—that’s just flaming wicked!”

While neither platform is all-good or all-bad, I think in light of biblical values we can determine a clear winner.

(N.B.: What follows is commentary rather than summary, which means I’ve picked issues that I thought would be interesting to discuss rather than mentioning every single item. So I encourage you to read through all six pages of the document, because all the issues are important topics in today’s day and age.)

Regarding abortion, it’s difficult to imagine a platform more pro-abortion than what the Democrats support or pledge to promote. Pharmacy-dispensed abortion pills (i.e., you can simply go to Walgreens and buy a pill to kill your baby). Passing national legislation to bring back the Roe v. Wade regime (which mandated access to abortion in all states with only the slimmest of regulations). Repealing the nearly 50-year-old Hyde Amendment (which prohibits federal funds from funding most abortions).

Wow.

As I’ve recently discussed in more depth, the Republican platform doesn’t promote these monstrosities, but it’s not nearly as outspoken as it ought to be in the other direction. As a matter of fact, it’s not even as outspoken as it was eight years ago.

When Trump ran the first time, the 2016 party platform explicitly supported a “human life amendment to the Constitution” and application of the 14th Amendment’s protection to preborn children. Now, it merely mumbles that “no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and . . . the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.”

Just leave it to the states, eh? Terribly weak sauce.

Yet, if you really get down to it, I suppose weak sauce isn’t cyanide.

Regarding sexuality, the Democrats again earn a flaming F. They praise Biden for signing the Respect for Marriage Act (codifying same-sex “marriages” in federal law) and they advocate more federal legislation to push “LGBTQI+” agenda. (Is it just me or does the string of alphabet soup keep getting longer?) They are passionate about “medically necessary gender-affirming care” (which is anti-medicine, never necessary, sex-denying, and thus, to top it off, isn’t even “care”). And they are especially concerned about furthering LGBTQI+ goals regarding fighting employment discrimination, mental health, adoption, foster care, and resisting book bans.

I’d give the Republicans a C on this issue. They don’t even really mention alphabet-soup issues that much—the letters “LGBT” do not even appear in the platform once!

Yes, there are some generalized commitments to “cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children” and to “keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.”

Yet seriously, “keeping federal funds from paying for something” is a lot different than saying “this is wrong and should be stopped.”

The Democrats have a clear picture of the specific ways they want to infiltrate schools, foster care, and everyday America with their toxic version of tolerance, and the Republicans respond with generalized guarantees that “well, the government just won’t fund it” and “we at least won’t let men play on women’s teams.”

These comebacks are relatively obvious and ultimately defensive, and just seem like milk-toast compared to the array of specific and aggressive Democrat priorities.

Regarding immigration: the Democrat platform, interestingly enough, lauds Biden’s crackdown on illegal crossings! Yet it also highlights the ways that Biden has expanded legal access, so it’s still characteristically Democrat in its stance.

On the other hand, the Republicans shout in a characteristically Trumpian fashion about the border wall and the travel ban, but they do have some admirable points about cracking down on cartels and child trafficking.

Regarding judicial appointees, Democrats have an odd claim to fame: “President Biden has appointed more than 200 highly qualified federal judges who look like America.”

What does that even mean?

Read the rest of the paragraph to discover that he used identity politics to guide his choice of judicial appointees. The Republicans specifically emphasize their opposition to court-packing. That’s good, but again, ultimately a defensive rather than an offensive move.

Regarding religious liberty, both platforms ostensibly support freedom of religion for everyone, but they emphasize it in two different ways. The Democrat platform focuses more on reducing hate crimes against Muslims and “trans”/”non-binary” people, while the Republican platform focuses more on reducing “anti-Christian bias.”

Believe it or not, Republicans support a “Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias.” Interesting idea, to say the least—I’ll have to stroke my chin for a little while longer before really weighing in on that one.

Regarding education, Democrats veer back into really radical territory. Ready? “Democrats will provide free, universal preschool for four-year olds.” (And who says they aren’t coming for our kids?) Democrats also laud how Biden canceled $167 billion in student loans and canceled student loan debts for almost 950,000 public servants. (And who says money doesn’t grow on trees?)

On the other hand, the Republican stance on education is actually, in my opinion, quite good. Parental rights, school choice and support for homeschooling, teaching real subjects instead of indoctrination, upholding the right to read the Bible in school, and—believe it or not—closing the federal Department of Education and sending the matter back to the states.

Three cheers for the Republicans if they ever get that done. Plus, they dared to use the bad word: teaching “Western Civilization” in schools.

An extra cheer for them for that.

Regarding the economy, both Democrats and Republicans seem to be committing to reducing inflation and generally supporting economic growth, but as per usual, Democrats emphasize “clean” energy and Republicans emphasize “American” energy.

And regarding safety, Democrats claim successes in accountable policing and congratulate themselves for the sharpest decline in murders in history. Republicans, on the other hand, make grandiose statements about making our military unquestionably the strongest in the world (even developing an “Iron Dome” missile defense system”) and maintaining peace through strength.

And now for one closing, conclusory note.

Overall, I’d say the Democrat stances sound like they were written by a joint committee of ACLU activists and typically liberal Democrat politicians. Sad, but ultimately unsurprising. What did surprise me was the Republican platform—it sounds like it was written by, well, Trump himself. Just check out the actual Republican platform PDF. 

Notice the prolific use of ALL-CAPS, Incessant Capitalizations, ubiquitously hyperbolic rhetoric, etc. I know we usually experience his thoughts via the spoken word, but if he ever were to write something, I bet you it’d read like that. . . 

Silly and serious commentary aside, this election is definitely one to be praying for—and voting in. Unsurprisingly, both sides are painting it as a “crisis “if the other side wins.

While it may not come to that, this election is indeed important, and warrants both our electoral influence and our earnest prayers.