Artist: Earth's Lost History
Words and music: Juan M Fermin
Length: 5:05
Intro
"They call themselves the party of the people…
But what's in Earth's Lost History."
The setup. The song opens by putting the party's own slogan next to its own history and letting the two sit side by side. Everything after this is the evidence.
Verse 1
"Owned slaves, defended the institution
Fought to keep the chains in constitution"
The count: before the Civil War, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery's defense. Southern Democrats wrote slave codes, demanded slavery's expansion into new territories, and seceded rather than give it up. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 specifically to stop slavery's spread.
"Founded the Klan, terror in the night
Lynchings and burnings by torchlight"
The count: the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865-66 by ex-Confederate Democrats in Tennessee. For decades the Klan functioned as the terror arm of the Democratic South, night rides, lynchings, and burning crosses aimed at Black voters and anyone who helped them.
"Segregation, separate but unequal
Poll taxes designed to keep you feeble"
The count: after Reconstruction, Democratic state governments across the South built Jim Crow, segregated schools, cars, waiting rooms, and water fountains. The poll tax was a fee charged to vote, set deliberately to price poor Black citizens (and poor whites) out of the ballot box. It survived in federal elections until the 24th Amendment banned it in 1964.
""How many marbles in this jar?"
Just to keep your vote from going far"
The count: where the poll tax was not enough, the registrars used tricks no man could pass honestly, like demanding a voter guess the exact number of marbles in a jar before he could register. The test was never about marbles. It was a lock on the ballot box with the key thrown away, and the song names it in the registrar's own words.
Pre-Chorus
"They don't want you to know the past
They hope the memory doesn't last
Earth's Lost History's written in blood and bone
And the truth won't leave you alone"
The thesis in four lines. The song's argument is that this is not ancient trivia. It is a record with names, dates, and body counts, and it does not go away because the textbooks skip it.
Chorus
"Domestic terrorists, that's what they are
Hiding behind a progressive star
Same playbook, different day
Just find a new way to make you pay"
The charge. The song turns the label now aimed at ordinary Americans back on the party with this record. The playbook does not change, it just finds a new day and a new way to make the same people pay.
Verse 2
"Opposed women's right to cast a vote"
The count: women's suffrage was fought for decades against heavy Democratic opposition, especially in the South. The 19th Amendment finally passed Congress in 1919 with Republicans voting overwhelmingly in favor; in the Senate, the yes votes ran roughly 82% Republican to 41% Democrat.
"Jim Crow laws, keep the system afloat
Filibustered civil rights for days
While they smiled in your face and praised"
The count: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was held up by a Democratic filibuster that ran 60 working days in the Senate, led by Southern Democrats, including former Klan member Robert Byrd, who spoke for over 14 hours straight. The bill passed only because Republicans voted for it in higher percentages than Democrats in both houses, about 80% of Republicans in the House and 82% in the Senate, versus roughly two-thirds of Democrats.
"The 13th, 14th, 15th they fought
Every freedom that the Union bought
Republicans overwhelmingly said yes
Southern Democrats almost all said no, I confess"
The count: the three Reconstruction amendments, the 13th abolishing slavery (1865), the 14th granting citizenship and equal protection (1868), the 15th granting Black men the vote (1870), passed on Republican votes over near-solid Southern Democratic opposition. Those amendments are the legal foundation of every civil rights case since.
Verse 3
"Indian Removal Act, Jackson's plan
Trail of Tears, the stain on this land
Founded the Democratic Party too
Forced the Cherokee, made them move"
The count: Andrew Jackson, founder of the modern Democratic Party, signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Under it, some 60,000 Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole were driven from their land at bayonet point. Roughly 4,000 Cherokee died on the forced march west, the Trail of Tears.
"FDR signed the internment order
Japanese Americans pushed to the border
120,000 locked behind the fence
That's the Democratic "defense"
The count: on February 19, 1942, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Around 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were forced from their homes and held in camps behind barbed wire for years. No charges. No trials. The Supreme Court upheld it at the time; the U.S. government formally apologized and paid reparations in 1988.
Verse 4
"Clinton signed the crime bill, built the prisons
Welfare reform, left families in divisions
Removed men from households on the dole
Tore apart the Black family's soul"
The count: the 1994 crime bill, signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, poured billions into prison construction and new police, added dozens of federal death-penalty offenses, and imposed three-strikes sentencing. U.S. incarceration climbed to the highest rate on earth. The 1996 welfare reform that followed restructured aid in ways critics across the spectrum say pushed fathers out of the home, because benefits dropped when a man was present.
"Now the border's wide open, floodgates creased
Trust in ballots fading, faith in law decreased
Billions stolen through childcare fraud and schemes
Autism scams on Medicare — justice just dreams"
The modern count. The song moves from history to the present: an open border, trust in the ballot and in the law itself falling, and fraud run through childcare and benefit programs, where auditors keep finding money paid out for children who were never there and services never provided, while the checks cleared anyway. The autism line points at billing scams run against Medicare in the name of autism services, families used as cover for theft, and nobody going to jail for it.
Chorus
"Domestic terrorists, that's what they are
Hiding behind a progressive star
Same playbook, different day
Just find a new way to make you pay"
The hook returns, word for word. The song keeps coming back to this: the methods change, the machine does not.
Verse 5
"Now they're coming for the Jews, the only democracy in the Middle East
Sixty-eight percent of Dems say cut off Israel's aid, to say the least
Fifty-eight percent say we're "too supportive" of our ally
Half say Israel's committing genocide — that's the Democrat battle cry"
The count, by the numbers: recent polling of Democratic voters has found roughly two-thirds favor cutting aid to Israel, a majority say the U.S. is too supportive of its only democratic ally in the Middle East, and about half accept the genocide charge against Israel. The party that once stood with Israel now polls against it.
"Rahm Emanuel calls Israel a "territorial pariah" now
Demanding arms embargoes, taking the anti-Zionist vow
They sympathize with Palestinians three to one
While antisemitism spreads, and they say it's just "getting done"
The count: this is not just anonymous voters in a poll. The song names Rahm Emanuel, a former Democratic chief of staff and ambassador, now using the word pariah about Israel and calling for conditions and embargoes on arms. And while the party sympathizes with the Palestinian side three to one, antisemitism spreads at home and gets explained away instead of confronted.
Verse 6
"Burn the flag, say they're ashamed to be American
Only twenty-four percent of young Dems say they're proud — that's the plan
Fifty-four percent say they're embarrassed by the Stars and Stripes
Democrats hate America — that's the vibe of their political types"
The count: survey after survey finds patriotism collapsing on one side of the aisle. Only about a quarter of young Democrats say they are proud to be American, and a majority of Democrats in recent polling say they are embarrassed by their own flag, a number that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.
"Michelle Obama wasn't proud 'til she was forty-four
Now they wave Palestinian flags outside the White House door
Self-hating Americans, that's their core trait
They'd rather tear it down than celebrate"
The count: in 2008, Michelle Obama said that for the first time in her adult life she was "really proud" of her country, at age 44, and only because her husband was winning. The song sets that line next to today's protests, where foreign flags are waved at the seat of American power and treated as the righteous side.
Insert, Christian nationalist
"They sneer "Christian nationalist" like that's some fascist brand,
For loving Christ and Constitution, pledging both by hand.
They burn our flag and cheer for Gaza, Tehran's command,
But call us the danger to this nation they can't stand."
The insert stops the count to answer a label. The song's point is the inversion: loving Christ and the Constitution gets treated as extremism by the same side that burns the flag and cheers America's enemies, while the people who pledge allegiance to both get called the danger to the nation.
Verse 7
"Around forty percent of abortions are Black babies in this nation
Barely fourteen percent of women — lethal concentration
Planned Parenthood put clinics in minority neighborhoods
While Democrats cheer and call it "reproductive goods"
The count: Black women make up roughly 14% of women of childbearing age in the U.S. and account for close to 40% of abortions. Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, who spoke to a women's chapter of the KKK and wrote about eliminating "human weeds," and its clinics have long been concentrated in minority neighborhoods.
"In states like Ohio, Black women bear the brunt of the knife
Disproportionate abortions cutting out whole branches of life
In some states, Black babies aborted at four times the white rate
Whole communities erased while Dems call it "choice" and "fate"
The count, state by state: in places like Ohio, the rate for Black women runs at multiples of the white rate, in some states four times as high. The song calls that what the numbers say it is, whole branches of family trees cut off before they can grow, while the party calls it choice.
Verse 8
"Democrats oppose school choice, trap the poor in failing schools
While their own kids go to private — that's the double-standard rule
Teachers unions fund the party, keep the system broken
Low-income and minority kids — their voices never spoken"
The count: teachers unions are among the Democratic Party's largest funders, and the party blocks the choice programs that would let poor families leave failing schools. Meanwhile, the politicians voting no send their own children to private schools. Their kids get choice. Yours get the grid.
"Charter schools serve mostly minority kids
But Democrats block them, keep the poor in the grid
Higher-income Dems oppose choice while they enjoy it privately
"Luxury beliefs" — they cost the rich nothing, but the poor pay the fee"
The count: charter schools serve mostly low-income and minority kids, the exact families the party claims to speak for, and still the party blocks them. The song borrows the phrase luxury beliefs for a reason: these are positions that cost a wealthy believer nothing at all, because the bill always lands on the poor.
Bridge
"They built more jails than any before
Locked up our brothers, showed us the door
Then turned around and called us racist
The irony? It's almost basic"
The count: the party of the 1994 crime bill, the era that filled the prisons, now runs on accusing its opponents of racism. The song calls that what it is: the arsonist lecturing the neighborhood about fire.
"Now they target Israel, burn the flag
Abort Black babies, call it a "win"
Oppose school choice, keep the poor in chains
Same playbook, different names"
The whole indictment compressed into four lines before the final run, every count the song just walked through, stacked end to end. Note the last word here is names, plural. The bridge is the one place the song puts it that way.
Chorus, Double Time, Aggressive
"Domestic terrorists, that's what they are
Hiding behind a progressive star"
The last chorus run starts stripped down to the charge itself, double time and aggressive, two lines only, before the song catches itself in the callback.
Callback
"Then they go on TV and say…"
"Vote for us — we're saving democracy."
"NO!! Wait, that's another song...
Earth's Lost History, tracking what's wrong"
The callback. That deep voice line belongs to the earlier song, "Save Democracy," and this song stops itself mid-record-scratch to say so: wait, that's another song. The point lands anyway: the party with this record campaigns as the savior of democracy. Save Democracy sits right before this one in the story the songs tell together, so go listen to it first if you have not.
Final Chorus
"Domestic terrorists, that's what they are
Party of the Klan, party of the scar
Same playbook, different name
But Earth's Lost History finds the blame"
The final chorus is not the same chorus. The progressive star line is gone, and in its place the song leaves the verdict where it started, with the Klan and the scar. And here the line really is different name, the only time the chorus puts it that way, because by now the song has shown the names changing across two centuries while the playbook stays the same.
Outro
"They don't want you to find Earth's Lost History.
But the record's already judged them, line by line."
The closer. The song's whole method is its verdict: no slogans, no spin, just the counts, in order, the way this page just walked them.
Domestic Terrorists (The Democrats), Earth's Lost History. Words and music: Juan M Fermin.
The full essay is on Substack: https://earthslosthistory.substack.com/p/domestic-terrorists-the-democrats