It used to be the Party that Freed the Slaves. The Party of Lincoln and his idealistic, compassionate vision with its drive toward greater equality. The party of yeomen, essentially.

These days, in the long shadow of Nixon’s Southern Strategy, it’s looking more and more like the Party to Re-Enslave, with the working classes as its target. No matter our race, creed, or ethnic origins, Pharaoh’s watching us from his palace. Or more accurately, his high-rise suite or private jetliner.

Remember, the only entrance to that ancient stratosphere was through birth, just like most of the One Percent today. (By marriage is a new twist, incidentally, for what, one percent of the One Percent?)

From our end, just imagine what eliminating the minimum wage would do, especially if a job’s required to get any public assistance, as some are proposing. Right to work? What about the other half of that exchange, implicit in the work ethic, the right to a livable wage?

Where I’m from, the work ethic is an essential component of the American way, a cornerstone of liberty and well-being. Curiously, its primary support in the public arena has come from a self-described democratic socialist rather than those who claim to support free enterprise. Seems to me there’s a serious disconnect somewhere.

Looking at the American economy of the past half-century, with its continuing erosion of the middle-class and the implicit right of a livable income in the exchange of the work ethic, I keep hearing a warning for us to avoid selling ourselves into slavery.

I can’t find an exact passage in Scripture, but we can see the way it happens after Joseph invites his brothers to Egypt. Over the years, they fall prey to bondage. As the story of Moses demonstrates, the pathway to freedom is quite a struggle.

We have warning signs in the growing inequality in wealth (as American pharaohs hunger for more), the rising percentage of have-nots, the burden of student-loan debt many graduates have no hope of paying off (not on the wage levels being offered, should they even find jobs in the fields they’ve prepared for), and so on.

Well, Ronald Reagan once said, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”

I doubt he expected it could be a rallying cry for the Left, much less the Center.

By definition, a billionaire has at least a thousand million dollars. There are, by one count, 492 billionaires in the U.S. They and their families would fit in a single hotel, if they’d settle on something less than a suite. Think about that. They own more than half of the nation’s wealth.

In this election cycle, Woodpecker doesn’t sound nearly as angry or outrageous as I’d expected. The tone of conversation has definitely shifted, and maybe its drift.

For perspective, remember that the infamous Chicago convention of ’68 took place nearly a month later, in late August. This is going to be a long and brutal battle.

The national government’s been gridlocked, thanks to a Republican vow to oppose and undercut anything President Obama has desired.  They have no basis for blaming him or his administration for anything, then. The failures really fall back on their own shoulders.

The challenge now is to elect officials who will work together to solve problems on behalf of all Americans.

Trump and his party have, in practice, already excluded all but older white males of a nominally Christian persuasion. As a white male, and as a radical Christian, I’m deeply offended by their arrogance and presumption.

The alternative of either the nation’s first woman president or first Jewish president has been far more welcoming in the primary season. Now, if Democrats and Independent voters stay united, the reality of an inclusive White House that serves all Americans is in reach.

So here we go.

With all of the hoopla surrounding vice presidential picks, I can’t help but wonder where the scrutiny was when John McCain pulled Sarah Palin out of the hat.

His lapse in judgment there may well have cost him the White House.

Quite simply, we dodged the bullet.

Let’s not underestimate the importance of this half of the ticket.

I, for one, am grateful for Joe Biden’s service the past eight years.