The Sun and the liberal media in general make the following clear: The Democratic Party is no longer a beacon of support for social justice, freedom of speech, diversity of ideas and democracy. Rather, the Democratic Party (but, hopefully, only a minority of its membership) has become a party of bigots, obstructionists and hypocrites who only want to pursue their own vision of the world ("Trump's unlikely presidential run culminates today, but divisions across nation persist," Jan. 20).
Freedom of speech is only allowed if it is consistent with the Democratic Party's philosophy. If others, especially Republicans, oppose the Democratic Party agenda, these opponents are demonized and called anti-immigration or are said to be pursuing a war against women and so forth. The Democratic Party is steadfast in its belief that Democrats alone support truth and justice; they are not willing to consider that people of good conscience can have legitimate opposing views that are equally valid and not based on hate. It seems that the Democratic Party believes only they know what is right and just, and opposing views need to be squashed rather than being debated in a fair, respectful forum of opposing points of view.
As to hypocrisy, the Democratic Party attacked Donald Trump when he would not commit to supporting Hillary Clinton if she won. The Democratic Party correctly pointed out that a basic tenant of our democracy is the acceptance of the winner and a peaceful transition of government. Yet when Mr. Trump won the election, there were claims that he was not a legitimate winner since he did not win the popular vote or that somehow he encouraged or benefited from the Russian hacks. Where was the Democratic Party's outrage against Ms. Clinton when she won the primary based on the party's underhanded way of trying to sabotage Sen. Bernie Sanders? Also, Democrats are deluding themselves by failing to consider that Ms. Clinton lost due to her own poor campaign and a general perception of people not trusting her.
And how do those massive rallies against Mr. Trump or the choice of Democratic members of Congress not to attend the inauguration and the persistent talk that Mr. Trump is not a legitimate president further the notion of a peaceful transition? I, too, have some concerns with aspects of the Trump presidency, but believe that he is to be our president and we should work with him as constructively as we can. In addition, when local law enforcement agencies attempted to address the illegal immigration problem, the Obama administration and Supreme Court made it clear that immigration policy and enforcement was a federal, not local, responsibility. Now that Mr. Trump will be president, Democrats are vowing to support sanctuary jurisdictions and to obstruct federal immigration law enforcement. Am I the only Democrat who sees the hypocrisy in this?
If we really care about our country, both parties need to work together with the new administration and make the best compromise possible in addressing policy needs. If Republicans had voiced a similar outrage when Mr. Obama won his second term, Democrats would have called them a basket of racist deplorables and they should get over it since Mr. Obama had won the 2012 election.
Martin Schugam, Owings Mills