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80 Years After D-Day, Remember the Men Who Liberated the World

BY: TIM GOEGLEIN | JUNE 06, 2024

Soldiers coming ashore at Normandy on D-Day.

TIM GOEGLEIN

June 6 marks the 80th anniversary of American, British, and Canadian troops landing on the coast of Normandy, France, in the greatest military mobilization in history, also known as D-Day. The New York Times reports that “fewer than 200 veterans of the allied invasion of Normandy, which marked a turning point in World War II, are still alive and sound enough to attend this year’s D-Day reunion in France.”

In the words of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose team had been planning the mobilization for over a year, “These men came … to storm these beaches for one purpose only, not to gain anything for ourselves, not to fulfill any ambitions America had for conquest, but to preserve freedom.”

Eisenhower knew the importance and difficulty of the task ahead. If the mission failed, it would set back Allied efforts to defeat Nazi Germany for at least a year, resulting in the inhumane extermination of millions of more Jews and the deaths of countless thousands of soldiers.

As Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt believed, the D-Day invasion was essential if freedom were to flourish and Christian civilization — rooted in the inherent respect for and dignity of all humankind — were to be saved.

That is why in the wee hours before the launch of the invasion, Eisenhower told the courageous soldiers they were about to “embark upon the Great Crusade” and the “eyes of the world are upon you.”

He then concluded, “Let us all beseech blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

The fighting was fierce indeed. More than 4,400 Allied soldiers of the 156,000 deployed from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada would lose their lives. Another 10,200 were injured, including 6,600 Americans. Those who fought later said the waters of Normandy turned red from all the blood spilled.

Forty years later, at the 40th anniversary of D-Day, President Ronald Reagan gave a touching tribute to those men who stormed the Normandy beaches, in particular the most treacherous, Pointe du Hoc, saying:

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God, we have not lost it — that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

He continued:

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

Yet, despite the importance of this mission, its memory fades with each passing generation.

President Reagan warned us about this in his 1989 farewell address to the nation: “You know, four years ago, on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who’d fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Hehn, and she said, ‘We will always remember, we will never forget, what the boys at Normandy did.’”

He added, “Well, let’s help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are.”

But unfortunately, we are not keeping our word. For instance, one poll found that 12 percent of Americans thought Dwight Eisenhower fought in the Civil War (which ended 25 years before he was born), instead of leading the D-Day invasion! Perhaps even worse, another survey found that only 43 percent of Americans know the real reason we celebrate Memorial Day. These sad statistics are just another example of how neglecting to teach American history in our schools has taken a toll on our national memory.

This is tragic. Perhaps it is our time for us, as parents, to do what else President Reagan encouraged us to do in his farewell address: “An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? All great change happens in America at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins.”

That is why I wrote my book, Toward a Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story, to equip parents to do this, so our children and their children will never forget the bravery of the men who stormed the beaches and climbed the cliffs of Pointe-du-Hoc to preserve freedom. If we do not teach this, the freedom they fought so valiantly for will become a forgotten memory. So, 80 years later, let’s never forget the history of D-Day.

Timothy S Goeglein is vice president of Focus on the Family in Washington, and author of the book Toward a More Perfect Union: The Cultural and Moral Case for Teaching the Great American Story (Fidelis, 2023).

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It Doesn’t Matter That Voters Hate Joe Biden If Democrats Can Rig Elections

REPORTED BY: BOB ANDERSON | JANUARY 19, 2022

Just a month before the 2020 election, radio host Rush Limbaugh commented that Democrats “resent the whole premise behind elections. Look, they don’t believe they should have to persuade anybody to agree with them … The modern-day Democrats have to go through the motions of campaigning, and they have to go through the motions of trying to win the hearts and minds of voters. But they resent the h-ll out of it. And in their world, it’s the one thing standing in their way: This need, this requirement to win elections. And I’m just telling you: As soon as they can figure out a way to eliminate elections, they will do it.”

Today, Democrats are engaged in a full-court press to pass legislation that would brush state election safeguards aside and codify the shenanigans of 2020 into federal law. They’ll nuke the filibuster if they can, a step never taken previously for high-priority legislation but pursued now for a bill that nobody is marching in the streets for. Anything to cement themselves into a permanent position of power.

As Joe Biden himself said, “It’s about election subversion, not just whether or not people get to vote. Who counts the vote? That’s what this is about, that’s what makes this so different from anything else we’ve ever done.” Indeed.

Voters Aren’t Clamoring for Democrat Priorities

It’s hard being a Democrat lately. Just ask Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. After promising to hold a vote to eliminate the filibuster and force through passage of their “voting rights” bill by Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 17), he had to push it back again. This, of course, comes on the heels of a stinging defeat of the Biden administration’s Covid vaccine mandate by the Supreme Court. That failure was preceded by the “Build Back Better” bill being stalled in the Senate, perhaps for good.

Party leaders are upset, but the truth is that voters are not enthusiastic about much of this. There are no marches for mandates. Nor is there any grassroots demand for Build Back Better or the federalization of state elections. And a recent poll found that support for the filibuster has only grown since Democrats began their push to eliminate it (now by a 53 percent to 27 percent approval to disapproval margin).

Democrats Mistakenly Double Down

Democrats may fail at policy, but they’ve always been reliably competent at the game of politics, zeroing in on votes with great precision. Have you noticed they haven’t been themselves lately, though? Even after taking a shellacking in statewide elections in Virginia and New Jersey last November, a moment when sane politicians typically learn from defeat, they instead doubled down. In her usual well-reasoned manner, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., commented after the electoral bloodbath that Democrats were beaten, not because of the president’s agenda, but because they hadn’t done enough to “excite, speak to, or energize a progressive base.” Never mind that voters knew what was at stake — and clearly rejected it.

One would have thought that older and more seasoned politicians might have guided the young House member back to reality, but the ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville, only sparked her outrage in saying that “stupid wokeness” had cost the Democrats. James comes from the era of old-school politics, one that abided by the cardinal rule: “Never piss off voters.” He’s surely aware of its corollary: “If you do, then turn back – ASAP.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should know better, but she responded, “no, no,” when asked if the election results in Virginia and New Jersey would cause Democrats to rethink their plans. Full steam ahead.

Democrats Out of Touch

The president lamented that his big ticket bills hadn’t been passed before Election Day, and then concluded, “but I’m not sure I would have been able to change the number of very conservative folks who turned out in red districts that were Trump voters.” For a politician who’s been in public office for nigh 50 years, that kind of logic seems disturbingly unhinged. How exactly does one surmise both that the party’s losses were due to not passing the big agenda soon enough (AOC’s position), and that it would not have mattered anyway because, you know, the red wave was coming? Excuses, blindness, or something else? It’s hard to tell.

We’re left to ponder: Have Democrats lost the ability to navigate public opinion? Does it even matter to them anymore? With the midterm elections just 10 months away, and the polls moving away from Democrats, will they continue to walk off the electoral cliff or bring themselves back to reality?

No Compromise

President Bill Clinton, who also saw his party shellacked in a midterm, acted in the way that sensible politicians normally do. He called up the new Republican speaker of the House and asked how they could work together. The result was a Democrat president signing on to welfare reform and abandoning his unpopular quest for government-run universal health care. Voters rewarded him with re-election.

Nothing seems to faze Joe, though. No compromise ever seems possible. There are, of course, times it’s noble to dig the heels in. Faced with an approaching enemy, Winston Churchill proclaimed, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” So where is the honor and good sense in ignoring voters who now give this president an embarrassing 33 percent approval rating?

Instead of finding common values to unite the nation, Biden calls those who disagree with him a bunch of racists. “Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace?,” Biden pontificated in a speech pushing his “voting rights” bill. “Do you want to be the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? This is the moment to decide, to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.”

Churchill battled the Nazis. Biden battles half of the country who simply disagrees with his party on a matter of policy — that is, who should control state elections — and whether we should suddenly abandon a Senate rule that’s existed for more than 200 years.

Not the Will of the People

Instead of being the moderate voters thought he was and simply calling up Republicans to find common ground legislation, policies for which voters would reward him, Biden remains ideologically ensconced in a White House driven by leftist special interest groups — venturing out to speak only to his own party’s caucus. Facing a headwind of opposition, he told the group of fellow Democrats on the Hill, “I don’t know that we can get this done … but I know one thing, as long as I have a breath in me … I’m going to be fighting to change the way these legislatures have moved.” Perhaps that’s the problem, Mr. President. You’re pushing a process rather than the will of the people.

Real Clear Politics notes that “it isn’t accidental that, in the generic ballot … the Democrats’ current vote share is 42.8%, nearly mimicking Biden’s.”

And “what does [RCP’s model] tell us about 2022? … a Republican-controlled Senate starts to come into the picture when Biden’s job approval falls to around 51% and becomes the most likely outcome at around 48%.” Biden is now at 42 percent approval in the RCP average, and that math should be clear to Democrats — but somehow, they seem unconcerned.

Maybe there’s a logical reason, a method to their madness. After pulling off the statistics-bending, six-fold swing-state wonder in the wee hours of election night 2020, perhaps Democrats now have reason to believe they’re no longer accountable to voters. Public opinion and polls become meaningless when you control the election process, when the courts turn a blind eye, and when the media blocks any honest inquiry.

Rush was right. Democrats are now working harder to change the election system than to change your mind because, as their actions demonstrate, they don’t care what you think. They just want to win.