Kumbaya politics are destroying the Democratic Party.
What do people want from government? Do they want left-wing policies? Right-wing policies? Well, sure, they'd like their political views represented. But what they want most is an effective, efficient, and well-run government that gets things done. Sadly, the Democratic Party is gaining the reputation as the party of inefficient, corrupt, and ineffective government. In the name of political correctness and cultural sensitivity, we are engaging in what I call "Kumbaya Politics" - named after the wishy-washy touchy-feely song of the 1960's. A song that when you hear it the first time, fills you with wonderment, but the second time (and subsequent listening) only makes you want to throw up.
Sure, at the Womyn's Lesbian Pottery Collective and Free-Range Organic Aubergine Cooperative Market, we can afford to have three co-Presidents (or as some want to call them, "co-facilitators" as the term "President" is too hetero-normative). That's an organization that will fail in short order anyway, as people resort to back-biting and bickering as well as gossip-mongering and whatnot. I've seen it happen - it's pretty predictable. The best thing you can do there is back away slowly, and don't get involved. It will just lead to aggravation and heartbreak.
We see it also in the modern trend of "participation awards" or the "everybody is a winner!" mentality. In the attempt to make everyone feel good, we end up making everyone feel bad. While that sort of thing is fine for a 5th grade potato sack race at the annual picnic, it really has no place in national politics.
We are seeing the meltdown of the Iowa caucuses. The Democratic party there decided to change almost every aspect of the caucuses, how they are tallied, and how they are reported, without really training anyone or installing the necessary infrastructure. Unlike before, where results are counted, today we are going to count the initial "vote" and then the re-alignments, write this all down on slips of paper, and then communicate the results by standing outside the caucus building in a candlelight vigil so the results can be tallied by telescope from the International Space Station. Just stand so you are spelling out your candidate's name. They'll see it. Trust me.
Why did they go through all these easily spoofed gyrations? I say easily spoofed as the "app" was apparently easy to hack and I suspect our friends at the Russian Internet Research Agency just performed a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by throwing garbage data at it. And when people called in to present their tallies? Not a complicated matter for the Russians to simply program auto-dialers to call those numbers again and again - for hours. I suspect in the coming days, we may hear more about this - unless the Democrats try to bury their embarrassment.
But getting back to why, the entire process was overhauled - badly - to appease one candidate from 2016, the one candidate who wants the nomination of the party he steadfastly refuses to join. Just as Tump and his ilk are always alleging "voter fraud" but never coming up with any evidence of it, Sanders has continually attacked the election process as "unfair" because not enough people voted for him. Why these changes were made and what they hoped to accomplish is anyone's guess. As some pundits noted, with three caucus "results" reported, it was possible that three candidates could claim victory as a result. We went through that in Georgia once, it didn't end well.
So we bend over backwards to appease Bernie. It is akin to appointing co-facilitators at the Co-operative. Sounds like a great idea at the time, and one that would make everyone happy. But in the end, no one is. Whatever the result of the caucuses turn out to be, you can be sure no one will be happy with them, as even the "winner" will have a cloud over their win.
Oh, and we've handed the Republicans more ammunition, to be sure. As Trump is gloating, how can Democrats claim to run the country when they can't even run a caucus in one tiny State? How, indeed.
Maybe they should have just handed out participation awards instead!
