Every Molotov Cocktail is another 10,000 votes for Trump - maybe 100,000.
The left doesn't get it. While Bernie's staff goes into meltdown, attacking each other on Twitter, young people argue that we need to get rid of Trump, so they burn down black neighborhoods and loot them, to prove their point. And many of these looters don't even live there - they commute to the riot from the suburbs. I hope they carpool. Molotov cocktails and arson tend to increase one's carbon footprint.
"We'll show them!" they seem to be saying, "Change has to come, or else!"
Nice theory, but it was tried before in the 1960's. What happened? Nixon.
You see, the vast, vast majority of Americans don't live in Detroit, Brooklyn, or even South Central LA. Take an airplane ride sometime, and marvel at the endless suburbs that ring our major cities, sometimes going on for 100 miles or more. That's a lot of people. And most of them don't want to rock the boat, and most of them are appalled at police brutality - but even more appalled by protester violence that has claimed the lives of more people (including police).
When push comes to shove, the vast majority of Americans will side with law-and-order and with the police. They aren't going to side with anarchy, antifa, proud boys, or buggery brothers or whatever these idiots want to call themselves. The vast majority of Americans would prefer to crush that, like an ant.
So the New York times gets all in a huff over Trump threatening to bring in the military. But unless the governors and mayors put a stop to this violence, the vast majority of Americans will say, "Good - and shoot them all in the head, while you're at it!" People get tired of rioting and lawlessness, and in very short order. No one has any sympathy whatsoever for someone who burns and steals. There is no legitimate justification for this.
Maybe it is time the grownups took charge. We have had enough of this childishness from the far-right and the far-left, dominating the political debate.
The left is making a major miscalculation here - thinking that Americans are going to sympathize with looters and arsonists. It just isn't going to happen. And no, "oppression" by the police doesn't justify looting and rioting - and the vast majority of this violence is being caused not by protesters, but by opportunists.
Sadly, the left is falling all over itself to court the looter vote. Looters don't vote. They don't contribute to political campaigns, they don't get involved in voter registration drives. If you ask them, they will tell you the whole system is fixed, so why bother voting? If they can't have their candidate, then why bother?
The folks living in these cities, seeing their stores and homes burned to the ground are not going to be sympathetic to looters, either, and they aren't likely to vote - and if they do, not for someone who is pandering to criminals.
Maybe it is time the grownups took charge. We have had enough of this childishness from the far-right and the far-left, dominating the political debate. We have had enough of these wild one-size-fits-all political theories that claim to solve everything "if only" we follow one philosophy. Not only do these ideas not work, but the odds of having one political philosophy dominate are slim. And the track record of when it has occurred is miserable.
No one is in love with Joe Biden. No one feels strongly about him. GOOD. That is exactly what we need in government, not feel-good celebrities with cult followings who promise the moon and deliver nothing. Trump or Sanders - same shit, different day. Wild promises, wild cult followers, and wild orgy-like mass-meetings that are more reminiscent of Nuremberg rallies than anything else.
Government should be adult-time, not some sort of reality show. But sadly, the average American has the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old, if that. Most don't even read at that level. A staggering number don't or can't read. This is why my blog gets only a few hundred hits. If I made a YouTube channel of me droning into the camera for a half-hour, it would generate thousands of hits. People want things spoon-fed to them, because thinkin' is hard (as is spellin').
Just a thought, but maybe what we need isn't radical change, but a Return to Normalcy. That was the campaign slogan of "Silent Cal" Calvin Coolidge, and maybe Joe Biden could resurrect it. Because, let's face it, after six months of 2020, we're ready to go back to something even approaching normal. Please.
Sadly, I am in the minority on this. Most folks want an "exciting" candidate that they can fall in love with, someone who will motivate them to put a bumper sticker on their car. Trump understands this - his minions all have Trump stickers and Trump flags and are emotionally in love with Trump, even if they don't understand that his policies probably impact them negatively. Bernie supporters are the same way - and tearing each other apart over his failed campaign. Most middle-of-the-road folks I run into are "meh" about Biden. They'd rather have him than Trump, but I get the suspicion that many are not really too motivated to vote. I mean, if there is something good on television on election day - a new season of some Zombie show on Netflix - well, you know, priorities.
Meanwhile, Republican voters hold their nose and vote for Trump. They realize they will get more of what they want from him - tax cuts, judges and justices, deregulation, and so on and so forth, even if he is a buffoon. Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love, and like I said, no one loves Joe Biden. Poor Joe!
Voting for Biden is making the intellectual decision that putting a Democrat in the White House (even a moderate Democrat) and filling the seats in the House and Senate with Democrats (even moderate and conservative Democrats - and yes, the latter actually exist) will move the needle in the direction you want to go, even if it doesn't take you all the way there, yet. Letting Trump win, by not voting, will only insure that things will get worse (depending on your point of view, of course). And no, letting things get really, really bad, isn't going to catapult a leftist like Bernie into office. We tried that four years ago, right? Things today can't get much worse, and here we are, with Trump looking at another four years.
And no, if Bernie got the nomination, he would not win - Americans would hold their nose and vote for Trump over a socialist. Newsflash - Bernie didn't get the nomination, not because, as Jane "I'll bankrupt a college!" Sanders claims, that the "big money PACs" were out to get him. Bernie lost because we don't like him. He's a loser, and always has been a loser, who has accomplished nothing in his entire life, other than to cling to a cushy government job. Sorry, but that's the reality of it, and that's just the problem - the "Bernie Bros" are so delusional as to think that this Senator Nothing from Vermont is Presidential timber. We need to move beyond delusions. If you want to put up a progressive, find a successful one, preferably not one with one foot in the grave.
We ended up with Biden as Hobson's choice - there wasn't anyone else in the crowded field who had the experience or had rational ideas. Andrew Yang? Case in point - delusional thinking that we could just give money away and that would work. Grow the fuck up. And no, he is not some "Silicon Valley Billionaire" - he is a guy who started a test-review company and has a net worth possibly less than mine. In other words, a middle-class schmuck. Why do his supporters and the media keep perpetrating this "dot-com billionaire" nonsense about him? Perhaps it is because we love the story more than the reality.
Therein lies the problem. Since the vast majority of Americans refuse to grow up, we will see four more years of Trump. The children in the Trump brigade will vote for him, presuming they can find the polling station and read the ballot. The "progressive" children (like Mrs. "what's a disposal?" AOC) will just pout - like the tykes they are - and refuse to vote at all.
Four more years of Trump - it seems inevitable. People get the government they deserve.