“There’s nothing different about the Democrats 160 years ago, 100 years ago, 70 years ago, or now.”
How do you figure? In fact, the differences far outweigh the similarities.
The Democrats of the mid 1800s (a fraction of whom owned slaves) were concentrated in the rural South, and were rooted in the ethnicities, cultural heritage and economic interests of the Southern Colonies. Most of these Southern demographics now call themselves Republicans, because the Republican Party platform better represents their limited-government, anti-union, religious-freedom values.
Today’s Democrats, who concentrate in the urban North and the urban West coast, evolved completely separately, with wholly different cultural backgrounds and economic interests. They tend to favor labor unions, redistributive collectivism, and a powerful central government.
They share the name Democrat, but that’s where the similarity ends.
Your original comment - that the Democrats haven’t been this irrational since the Republicans took away their slaves - is quite defensible if you were being facetious. But if you meant it as a serious comment it’s just silly.
Save it for the Confederacy Amen Corner. The Democrats have been the party of using any means to get and keep what they think they’re entitled to since before the Confederacy. All that has changed is how they obtain and use their pawns.