It sure seems like over the last 60+ years, things have progressed, albeit slowly, with Democrats in charge, and regressed when Republicans were in charge. You can draw a line from abolition to women’s suffrage to civil rights to gay marriage that all lines up with Democrats.

And what about the war in Afghanistan? What about the Patriot Act? What about the total removal of our civil liberties with complete bipartisan consensus? What about the fact that Barack Obama maintained that the US has the right to attack any country on earth if it thinks it's harboring terrorists? What about Guantanamo Bay and the policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial? What about ICE?

When I was growing up in the 90's, the military budget was still inflated, but nowhere near what it is now. The country was at peace (relatively). There were no masked men raiding workplaces and dragging immigrants away to camps. The idea that the government could see your data was a paranoid conspiracy theory instead of an accepted fact of life. Due process was far from perfect, but couldn't just be ignored by the government using the word "terrorist."

I don't know how old you are, so maybe you're too young to remember a time when rights existed, but you can't convince me we haven't regressed because I was there and I watched it happen, and it was absolutely a bipartisan effort. The Democrats refuse to commit to abolishing ICE, they have always supported the so-called "emergency measures" of the Patriot Act, they support keeping the military budget at an outrageous size, greater than the next 9 countries combined. And you ignore all those facts. Which one of us is "denying history?" Which one of us is "delusional?"

Maybe if you go all the way back to 60 years or more, you can find some progress. Over the last 30 years, what I've actually experienced and seen firsthand, things have absolutely regressed, and they continue getting worse no matter who's in charge.

The long arc of history Dr. King spoke about seemed to bend in the right direction under Democrats.

The long arc of history will see Democrats bend to the left or it will see them break and be replaced.

The only reason you have a problem with me is because you know that the Democrats stand against progress. Because you know that they will resist my demand to not kill hundreds of thousands of people. If you thought they wouldn't commit mass murder, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Frankly, even if they did make progress happen domestically, which they don't, then I would still oppose them because I am not so selfish as to vote for someone who commits mass murder abroad just because they share the plunder with me.

Like, what is gay marriage next to hundreds of thousands of dead civilians? It's nothing. How many dead Afghans were gay? How many immigrants rounded up by ICE were gay? If we don't have the right to not get murdered or locked up by the government for no fucking reason, then we have no rights at all.

I am queer, but I have absolutely no interest in some vision of pinkwashed imperialism. We don't need "more gay drone pilots." My red line is a red line, end of story. Stop committing mass murder or I will always regard you as my enemy.

I would encourage you to actually read Dr. King, btw. He understood the fact that none of us are free until all of us are free, a fact you seem to be struggling with.