They're Smarter Than Us..... Right?

These elected leaders of ours, they're smarter than us, right?

Why does it seem these two are ready to star in a re-boot of Glee?

I keep thinking to myself that somewhere in the bowels of the Democratic Party's situation room (deep underground somewhere) there is a brain trust of people who have this all figured out.  There is a method to their madness - that all of this makes sense, somehow, in the greater scheme of things.  They have a strategy to win elections - at the State and Federal level, and even the White House.  Just wait for it, like the one guy in the Kung Fu movie, who does nothing, when he finally joins the melee, it will be freakin' awesome!

Then I think about the election of 2016 and all the idiotic mistakes the party made - nominating Clinton, letting Bernie tear her down, and then failing to campaign in most Midwestern States.  These are smart guys.   Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar.   Barack Obama went to Harvard.   They know more than us, right?   Or maybe not.   Maybe they are as idiotic as we are, and as dumb as the average American who spends all day watching Fox News and "Reality" television - and texting and tweeting and facebooking on their smart phone.   Maybe.

This Socialism thing, for example.  It sounds pretty dumb to me.   And it sounds like something that will never be enacted in my lifetime (although, caveat, I said the same thing about Gay Marriage, but that was a Supreme Court surprise, not something fought over in the houses of Congress).  But maybe these guys are smart.  They know that to win, the last thing you want to do is make rational promises.  Wild promises and impractical solutions are what won the day for Donald Trump, and to a lesser extent, George W. Bush.   We voters don't want "the smart guy" who went to Harvard, we want the idiot who partied through Yale - or the angry reality television "businessman".

So today's crop of idiots on stage at these "debates" (which I don't watch, thank you) are the Democrat's version of Donald Trump.   Give the people what they want - wild fantasies and wet dreams, and "policy positions" that will never see the light of day or make it even out of committee in the House or Senate.   Why not promise the moon?  When you don't deliver, you just blame the Republicans or the "Deep State" or whatever equivalent punching-bag scapegoat whipping-boy you can concoct.   And I am sure they will concoct one, too.  I think the last time around, it was the "obstructionist Republicans" in Congress.

But of course, maybe this isn't any cause for alarm.  Maybe this is how the system is suppose to work. Read the Constitution sometime - the real one, not the imaginary one that the party hacks (on both sides) claim to exist - you know the imaginary Constitution that legalizes abortion in the third trimester and allows people to have as many guns as they want, organized militia or not.

In the real Constitution, wild ideas are watered down pretty quickly by the inherent inertia of the legislative bodies.   The raucous rabble of the House will all add riders and amendments and demand some sort of back-scratching just to get the thing to the floor for a vote.  And the Senate will deliberate the idea until everyone has lost interest.   This was by design - our Founding Fathers knew that every popular idea to come down the pike wasn't necessarily a good idea.  And we should well realize this after fiascos like Prohibition. 

Someone gave us an old copy of Readers Digest (May 2019) which was a trip down memory lane.  Reactionary as always, it hasn't changed a bit since 1967 when I would read a stack of them my grandma kept on her toilet tank (I realize, in retrospect, she must have been constipated).  Anyway, in the "Laughter, the Best Medicine" section was this joke: 

Q: What's the difference between Capitalism and Socialism? 

A:  In a Capitalist society, man exploits man.  In a Socialist one, it's the other way around.

I thought this was pretty funny.  But raving Socialists, which appear to be the majority of the candidates at these debates, probably don't get it.  The idea that you can give everyone free things sounds great, of course, but only until you get to the point where you have to take away things from other people to achieve this.

On a worldwide scale, the poorest of people in the USA are easily in the top 50% - perhaps even the top 20% or 10%.   Even a lower-middle-class person in the USA is in the top 1% of income for the world.  Scary thought.  You need only $32,000 to be an evil 1%'er, and that's less than the median income in the USA (~$55,000) and about half the average income (~$68,000).

If you really want to be "fair" about this, you can't limit socialism to just one country.  After all, if you are really in favor of "open borders" you'll find people clamoring to get in, the moment you fling the door open, just go get that free stuff you promised.   So whether you want to or not, you'll be "sharing the wealth" with the rest of the world, which is only fair, right?   We need to divide up the pie more fairly, so everyone gets the same tiny slice!

Problem is, this means that in order to "be fair" we would have to take away wealth and income, through taxes from a majority of Americans and then redistribute the wealth to people all over the world.  Then, and only then, will socialism work as intended!

Socialism sounds fine and all, until they come to take away your money.   And quite frankly, I am all in favor of it.  After all, I have maybe 20 years left on this planet, and I have structured my life (thanks to Obamacare) so that my taxable income is very low.   Thus, I would be the beneficiary of a lot of this potential governmental largess, and those millennials just entering their peak earning years, will all be taxed to death.  Fuck the millennials - killing off Hooters! 

They'll get what they deserve! Actually, killing off casual dining chains is the only smart thing they've done!

That is, of course, the name of the game in politics - get people to vote against their own best interests.  Limousine liberals vote themselves a tax hike, by voting for a candidate that panders to their left-wing social issues.  Poor white trash in the trailer park vote for right-wing candidates who cut their benefits while promising to outlaw gay marriage cake-baking.  Black voters, well, they don't vote.

But like I said, the point is entirely moot.   Socialism has about as much "legs" in the United States as half of Trump's proposals.   The name of the game is to win the nomination, and in order to do that, you have to pander to some college student from Iowa, who has nothing better to do that to waste six hours of their life at a "caucus" hanging around and haranguing fellow caucuses into voting for Bernie.  People smarter than me have figured this out.  My voice doesn't count.  By the time they have a primary in Georgia, no one will care, as the front-runner will be figured out, and with the electoral college, my vote doesn't count anyway - or would it?

In other words, this is all a sideshow.  The folks they are talking to isn't us.  In the general election, they will "pivot" more mainstream - or at least try to.  In this era of attack ads, paeans to socialism may come back to haunt them.

But, hey, they're smarter than us, right?  They don't really believe in this socialist crap that a six-year-old could explain was stupid.

Right?   Right?