Comments

Could Sanders win? — 68 Comments

1. Sanders appeals particularly to the young for several reasons. Many are in debt and want help. Not all is student debt. Auto loan debt is also a problem, There are now 7 year car loans. Why ? Regulations have raised the cost of new cars. Student loan debt is the other big ticket item.

   Secondly, they are ignorant. They know no economics and economics is largely taught by Marxists in colleges. An Economics class in college made me a Republican. I doubt that happens now.

   They know no history. I see these video projects of asking college students simple history questions. They don’t know anything about World War II. The NY Times 1619 Project is aimed at these ahistorical students.

   The problem for Bernie is that they tend not to vote. The problem for the DNC is, if Bernie is sidelined again by intrigue, his supporters will stay home.

2. Well, if Bernie wins the Democrat nomination, there will be significantly less voter fraud in the 2020 Election. There’s that . . .

3. Anyone recall Bernie’s heartattack? Maybe they do, and concomitantly anticipate his veep choice smuggled in? But who is that to be, if something of the sort is on supporters’ minds?

4. They know no economics and economics is largely taught by Marxists in colleges.

   No, it’s not taught by Marxists. Fundamental courses in economics are quite conventional. They assist in moving people in a rightward direction because (for those who can master them) they give some sense of how the decision-making of producers as well as consumers is constrained in economic transactions, and what the implications are of attempting to dictate certain outcomes are. Economists respect markets. Just ordinary basic instruction (without any discussion of normative questions) is enough to discredit Ralph Nader or the purveyors of rent control regimes.

   I suspect it is true that there are fewer people in economics departments of a philosophically libertarian bent and fewer enrolled Republicans. Perhaps at the business school. I’ve known of places where there wasn’t a single Republican in the department, something which would have been odd in 1980. The soi-disant libertarians who are prominent in topical commentary tend to be poseurs like Tyler Cowen.

   A real problem in economics departments is that their members have commonly lost interest in the economy as a research subject and attempt to apply economic tools to the study of the subject matter in other disciplines with different imaginations. Another is cowardice. Almost no academic economists (including very prominent people like Gregory Mankiw) have been willing to challenge the sort of malicious topical commentary favored by Bradford deLong and Paul Krugman. Both men have diminished the quality of public discussion, and it’s been crickets from the rest of the profession. That really merits contempt.

5. IF Sanders is nominee I think he’ll choose Gabbard as a running mate. I suspect he feels that she is the only choice he could trust.

6. Back in 2016, almost all of my lefty-left social media acquaintances (some of them were still friends way back then) were huge Bernie supporters. I couldn’t figure out why, other than that their “evil rich people” obsessions are reflected well in Bernie’s geriatric ravings. Most of them are my age – that is, certainly old enough to have had a chance to know that communism has failed, bloodily, everywhere and that while Bernie likes to invoke fantasies about magical Scandinavian socialism, he is communism only slightly veiled.

   When Bernie was pushed aside for Hillary, they were initially miffed, but after a good deal of getting the ranks in order, they all went out and voted for Hillary and have been shrieking ever since that it was impossible that such a God-given candidate could possibly have been defeated in an honest election. It’s mind-numbing.

   Every one of them would squeal like kindergarteners on Christmas morning if Bernie were the nominee, and even if the Democrat party candidate ends up being a potted plant, they will vote it, for after grumbling and moaning.

7. Hey, remember the British Press caterwauling in the days just before their recent election that the polls(!) were showing definitively that Jeremy Corbyn was closing in—and closing in fast!!—on that Tory hairball? A real race to the finish it was going to be, yessiree, in fact, too, too close to call….
   Remember?
   Remember?
   (As for polls, heh, remember our very own… in the run-up to November 8, 2016?)

8. that their “evil rich people” obsessions are reflected well in Bernie’s geriatric ravings.

   That’s the disconcerting thing about Sanders and some of his supporters. A great deal of pissing and moaning about the wealthy without identifying anything they’ve done that’s nefarious. It’s variations on a theme of gib-me-dat.

   The appropriate focus of any ethic of common provision is to concern oneself with what a broad mass of people do not have (in our country, that’s security), not with what person X does have (unless person X is a trouble-some rent-seeker or a political manipulator, in which case it’s not what he has but what he does and could do that’s the issue). People babble about Bernie’s ‘communism’ (and, as late as 1983 he regularly looked at Trotskyist literature), but the real problem is the Peronist strain in the Sanders discourse.

9. Sanders, like most lifelong politicians, has a well documented past, which includes support for totalitarian societies and interests inimical to to our foundational creed. Trump and the Republicans will broadcast all of this to the country if he is the nominee. Another simple appeal is to point out his policies, if enacted, would destroy everyone’s retirement savings, including pension plans, all of which are heavily invested in the products of American capitalism. There is a reason that the Democrats are running scared in reaction to his being well received by their hard core left.

10. I am less and less convinced that Iowa and New Hampshire matter a whole lot. There are a bunch of primaries on March 3, and then the shape of the Democrat race will be more clear. I think that Bernie could win the nomination. I did check my summer reservation in northern Wisconsin to confirm that I will not be staying with relatives in Milwaukee during the convention, on the chance that riots break out if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination.

    I don’t think Bernie could beat Trump. Maybe that’s because I hope not, but he and his whole party are quite radical now.

11. I think Sanders could have won in 2016. He had created a motivated campaign gathering new followers that wanted a fresh opinion. Had the DNC not rigged their primary; I think Sanders could have been a tough fight… unless his history could be told. Since 2016, Sanders history is no longer a secret to potential followers. For that reason, I think he could win his primary, but I can’t see him drawing independent voters to win a general election.

12. An example of Democratic angst if Sanders is the nominee:

    https://twitter.com/CaseStudyQB/status/1224365681895976960

13. Where I’m at, Bernie is the one, though Warren is a favorite… among my women friends who resemble her 🙂 Biden is mentioned with the enthusiasm of getting socks for Christmas.

    All objections to Bernie, ie. Socialism is evil, supporting the Iranians during the Iran hostage crisis was disgusting, the economy is good! etc, are dismissed with “phooey, right wing fake news.”

14. The prospect of Sanders emerging triumphant in the Dem primaries is tantamount to spiking the DNC punch bowl with a potent dose of DMT.

15. Sanders, like most lifelong politicians, has a well documented past, which includes support for totalitarian societies and interests inimical to to our foundational creed.

    He earned a living any way his unskilled self could manage until age 40, when he was elected Mayor of Burlington. At the time he ran, he was an hourly employee of one of the local historical societies. His political activity prior to 1981 was strictly avocational.

    I wouldn’t confuse Bernie with, say, Victor Navasky. Bernie dealt with practical problems of municipal government and had to cast votes on policy questions which had real consequences. I suspect if you rummaged around in his past, you’d find a great deal of wretched material that reads like the crud you used to see in The Nation or Mother Jones, whose writers and readers knew nothing of policy but were very practiced at striking attitudes. Bernie’s damaged goods, but he’s still bigger than those creeps.

16. but I can’t see him drawing independent voters to win a general election.

    I can. The election will be fought over a modest corps of swing voters. The Democratic base will vote for a dead dog in the road over the President. Shouldn’t be that way, but it is.

    The Democratic electorate has had, I might note, no interest in their better inventory. They ignored the mess of governors who ran and have largely ignored the men who prospered in the business world. Bernie and Booty-gig do have executive experience (though Booty-gig was a failure as Mayor of South Bend, which Bernie was not in Burlington). Biden and Warren have no business running for the job given their deficient preparation and (in Biden’s case) unimpressive and declining mental acuity.

17. Does anyone here frequent blogs like this one on the left side of the aisle? Is there a similar “burn it down, it will magically reform as what we want” streak that we saw over here on the right side?

    Surely anyone with rational comprehension understands that Bernie and his supporters not only represent disaster to normal people, they would revel in the destruction of normal people’s lives and livelihoods. Even the Democrat party gets that.

18. Does anyone here frequent blogs like this one on the left side of the aisle? Is there a similar “burn it down, it will magically reform as what we want” streak that we saw over here on the right side?

    I’m a regular at a couple of blogs with a mixed crew of posters. Also, we have a mass of people on our Facebook list who are leftoids. The quality of discourse on the portside is quite poor, IMO. Of course, some of my interlocutors would cue Mandy Rice-Davies, I’m sure.

    I think if you frequent blogs like Crooked Timber you may find something worth pondering. Then again, you may find tarted up rubbish. I’d suggest the residual periodical press, like The New York Review of Books or The Boston Review or The UTNE Reader.

19. If nominated, Sanders doesn’t have the proverbial “snowballs chance in hell” of being elected.

    Unless… the SuperPacs refuse to expose his history, his hypocricy (a millionaire who attained on public employee income THREE homes) and put in simple terms the inescapable consequences of his proposed policies.

    IF Sanders did win his protege AOC will be eligible for the Presidency in 2024…

20. Kyndyll:

    My impression of Bernie supporters and AOC supporters is that they are true believers who think Bernie and AOC’s ideas are great and should be implemented. I have never seen anyone say to elect them because it will somehow lead to something more reasonable, although I suppose such people may exist.

21. Is it because Vermont is so close, although the two states are quite different in their makeup?

    Me, in college in MA in the ’80s: Vermont is just like New Hampshire, only upside down.

    Vermonter fellow student: … … Yeah, pretty much.

    (p.s. My mother was from NH; there’s a street in Wolfeboro named for her family.)

22. Neo,
    Have you asked your friend who favors Bernie if she favors Communism?
    I’m curious to know if people who like him as a candidate are simply unaware of his Communist connections, or if they think Communism is a good form of government, or if they’re just totally ignorant of Communism.

23. COULD SANDERS GET ELECTED ? Sure he can if he gets the nomination because on any given day there can be an unanticipated upset due to all sorts of strange things as it gets closer to the actual November election. Trump was an impossible however, Trump is your president. Anything can happen.

24. Trump did win. Bernie could win. But the issue that everyone is concerned with now has nothing to do with actual voters. It’s the pushback Democrats will face from corporate America if Bernie is the nominee. Big business is usually just fine with Big Government because they can handle it better than their smaller competitors but Bernie is faaaaaaar beyond their comfort level.

    If Bernie becomes the Democratic nominee, not only will corporate money for the Dems dry up (and not just for Bernie but the DNC and likely many individual Dem candidates) but there will be SERIOUS pressure brought to bear on news agencies to lay off Trump and tear into Bernie. How long do you think Jeff Zucker will take multiple calls every day from major CNN advertisers before he issues a “come to Jesus memo” to his employees?

    Mike

25. About an hour ago I asked my wife how anyone could vote for a Democrat.
    Yes, Bernie could win or so could Warren or any of the Dems. If they did, it would be a disaster not just for the US but for much of the world. No, not hyperbole. Yet their voters don’t see it. But then I don’t see Trump as a disaster either, nor is he a racist or a Nazi or anti Semitic.
    If they do win, we all will be getting good and hard, even their supporters.

26. Unfortunately, yes, Sanders could win BOTH the nomination and the Presidency.

    I’m not sure any other commenters here have encountered the visceral hatred that even some normally Republican suburbanites hold against President Trump.

    Think of it as the same as the sheer loathing many of us here have for Hillary Clinton. (If I misspelled her first name it’s because I simply won’t bother to look it up.)

    Strangely, I’ve encountered those who hated Hillary who NOW hate President Trump.

    Here in Northeastern Illinois it is not just politics that cause cognative dissonance. One couple we know would continually belittle the younger families around here with huge homes and nannies who also bought those ridiculous Land Rover cars. One quess what brand of car they bought their daughter for a College graduation gift. “Well, it’s want she wanted.” was their sheepish explanation.

    So, unfortunately, Bernie Sanders might just be the next President of The United States.

    If it looks like he has a chance in early October I am selling all my equity positions in the stock market and will buy a run of laddered CD’s.

27. “If it looks like he has a chance in early October I am selling all my equity positions in the stock market and will buy a run of laddered CD’s.”

    If that starts looking likely, we might all need to put some thought into how to restructure our assets, so that we have a chance to keep what we worked our whole lives for.

    Sanders is truly terrifying. I didn’t have bug out contingencies if Obama won in 2012, as much as I detest the man on all levels. Sanders …

28. Most people, and especially Democrats have little idea about public finances. They pay taxes and have a vague sense that those taxes pay for such things as police, firemen, and street maintenance. However, when it comes to the federal government, they have only a hazy idea of where their money goes and that the Feds don’t have any money except what they can tax away from the citizens and businesses. Most have only a vague idea that the Feds have run up a huge debt that must eventually be reckoned with. The Dems like to say that there’s plenty of money for their programs, it’s just in the wrong hands. Tax the rich is the mantra. Then we can have lots of free stuff. It’s a dream that has been tried by other countries, always with disastrous results. Oh, but we can print unlimited money say the believers in Modern Monetary Theory. If that was true, Venezuela, Argentina, and Zimbabwe would all be wealthy countries instead of economic basket cases.

    It all comes down to whether or not voters understand that free market capitalism is hard, (because it requires hard-work and responsibility) but it provides a better standard of living for more people than any system yet devised by humans. It isn’t perfect and it doesn’t erase poverty, addiction, sloth, bad luck, or other human problems, but offers all who are hard-working and responsible a chance at a decent life. Too many young people and even many older people don’t seem to grasp this and have a belief that by some magic the government can create an egalitarian system of equal financial outcomes. That is what Bernie is selling. Thirty six years ago, Walter Mondale ran on a promise to raise taxes and create more equality of outcomes. He lost in a landslide. Will the voters reject a similar promise by Sanders or some other Democrat candidate? My guess is that they will, but not as overwhelmingly as in 1986. When it comes to understanding economic realities, things are not moving in the right direction.

29. “It all comes down to whether or not voters understand…”

    No, that’s not all. It also comes down to capitalists understanding that if capitalism is nothing more than a Hobbesian jungle where the rich and powerful insulate themselves from the “creative destruction” that devastates everyone else, sooner or later the public will welcome someone who promises the burn that jungle down.

    Mike

30. Bernie could win.
    His “geriatric ravings” are music to many.
    And never forget the Gramscian march through the institutions; we have had our tax money used to wash little brains into Leftist land for several generations.
    I look back on my liberal arts college years and see it even then, with an acceleration shortly after I graduated in the ’60s.

    So the Lefties were instructing back then is my point, though in a kinder, gentler way, and have since geometrically multiplied as teachers. They are everywhere! In consequence, we have brainwashed unreasoning committed Leftist voters, their students, as hordes out there, especially the young. With the right turn-out push, no effort spared, the Vermont angry Commie could win. If Bernie wins, the Dems will likely also increase their hold of the Congress, and then there will be hell to pay.

    MBunge: BTW, the two largest amount Dem contributors are the public unions and the trial lawyers.

31. And Trump’s on pace to get about 97% of the vote in Iowa. Keep on keepin’ on, NeverTrumpers!

    https://iowagopcaucusresults.com/?mc_cid=92580489f8&mc_eid=868f59a6bd

    Mike

32. Say we are approximately as good as JudeoChristian morals would teach.
    This means we have an altruistic job to do. It isn’t infinite. It is a finite job trying to help those of us who are less fortunate. Too much help weakens the receiver and the society. Too little makes us feel bad because we are pretty good folks after all.
    Do you think that we would do this altruistic job all by ourselves without the government’s forcing? By our own giving and philanthropic urges?
    Socialists think we need forcing and so they have a poor opinion of mans’ character.
    Conservatives feel we have good enough character to do this job ourselves.

33. Bernie’s supporters remind me a lot of the Republicans who cheered for Ron Paul back in the day.
    Also young and politically naive.
    Although I wouldn’t call them stupid (intellectually), because I knew some of them, they were ignorant about many things.

34. stu on February 3, 2020 at 4:43 pm said:
    Sanders, like most lifelong politicians, has a well documented past, which includes support for totalitarian societies and interests inimical to to our foundational creed. Trump and the Republicans will broadcast all of this to the country if he is the nominee. Another simple appeal is to point out his policies, if enacted, would destroy everyone’s retirement savings, including pension plans, all of which are heavily invested in the products of American capitalism. There is a reason that the Democrats are running scared in reaction to his being well received by their hard core left.

    Covers a lot of the points others have raised, and I think that the cover-up by the MSM will certainly be attempted, but he isn’t like Obama. His record is old and well-known, if not by the entire electorate then certainly by a lot of the opinion makers. Some voters won’t care, just as they didn’t care about the negative reports on Obama, such as they were (see Geoffrey’s comment, and Esther’s observation).

    Will Big Business go for him? (MBunge thinks not; some leaders have already threatened to sit out a Warren candidacy). Are unions and trial lawyers (per Cicero) enough to make a difference by themselves? Maybe if BB sits out, but what if they go for Trump as the lesser threat? He has already reduced their taxes and raised the economy (Question: why do ANY business owners vote Democratic? Rent-seeking must be really, really lucrative.)

    Many otherwise intelligent people believe that their tax refund is the government giving them a gift (see J. J. on fiscal ignorance). They can just as easily believe what Sanders and the rest of the Dems are preaching.

    One thing to look at very closely is how the DNC is smoothing the path for Bloomberg, whether to be their nominee or for other reasons.

    https://news.yahoo.com/oligarch-bought-way-2020-race-103011267.html

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/steve_bannon_lays_out_a_shocking_scenario_of_the_real_reason_behind_bloombergs_investment_of_2_billion_in_politics.html?utm_source=vuukle&utm_medium=newsfeed

35. SueK on February 3, 2020 at 6:16 pm said:
    Neo,
    Have you asked your friend who favors Bernie if she favors Communism?
    I’m curious to know if people who like him as a candidate are simply unaware of his Communist connections, or if they think Communism is a good form of government, or if they’re just totally ignorant of Communism.
    * * *
    All of the above.

36. Of course Bernie could win; Hillary almost won and was far less likable. He could also lose in a landslide, if the Dem media turn on him, as they might do in order to save the not-yet-taxed super rich from paying off trillions in student loans and healthcare and auto loans and everything.

    Envy is culture destroying.

    https://newcriterion.com/issues/2020/2/gertrude-himmelfarb-the-enlightenment
    Great article on post-modernism. Himmelfarb
    insisted on using the term “virtues.” In a much-quoted passage Himmelfarb wrote:

    Hard work, sobriety, frugality, foresight—these were modest, mundane virtues, even lowly ones. But they were virtues within the capacity of everyone; they did not assume any special breeding, or status, or talent, or valor, or grace—or even money. They were common virtues within the reach of common people.

    Our society needs virtues.
    Virtues need to be taught.
    The colleges teach against virtues.

    Most of the college-indoctrinated will vote against Trump, in favor of anybody else. I think Trump wins (75%), but I’d guess, and bet, that Bernie would actually be Trump’s toughest opponent — because Bernie believers are passionate.
    Silly, wrong,
    economically juvenile.
    But passionate.

    The center will not hold.

    The best lack all conviction,
    while the worst are filled with a passionate intensity.

37. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/the-state-of-things-for-dems-gloomy-getting-gloomier.php

    I think this blogger makes some very insightful remarks.

    When it comes to Bernie he has a very different policy stand from most of America and enough Democrats that he would lose a general election. He can give up on the independent vote, (40% of the vote) who a high percentage believe in less government. the reason Trump won was he had similar policies to most Republicans. The only comparison to Bernie is they are both outside candidates.
    Bernie was a lot of problems; his health, his millions, his three houses and his views on socialism. He is consistent in his beliefs, but he is a hypocrite on how he lives. He could get the Democratic nomination, which would be a good thing for the Democratic Party. He loses and the Democrats may get their ‘head out of the sand’ and realise that going so left is a bad direction.
    Also, if your friend is watching CNN she will learn to not like Bernie. They do not like him.

38. Parker

    I think you are right about Gabbard. She is the best candidate the Dems have. But the are foolish and have sidelined her. She is way more moderate than people realise. Bernie owes her too.

39. https://babylonbee.com/news/breaking-health-officials-quarantine-portland-to-prevent-spread-of-communism

40. Gonna just shill for the Bee tonight.
    https://babylonbee.com/news/study-people-tend-to-tune-out-by-the-fifth-threat-to-our-democracy-per-day

    It’s snowed in Denver all day long, and it’s cold outside.
    Sure glad I didn’t have to go out to a caucus to have my vote annulled by the DNC.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/02/waiting-on-iowa.php

    UPDATE: Still very little to report as we hit 10:30 in the East. The final alignment data now has Buttigieg and Sanders virtually tied at around 27 percent. Warren has moved into third with 20 percent.

    Biden is down to around 14 percent, a result that, if it were to hold, would be a huge setback for the former vice president.

    But this is with less than 2 percent of precincts reporting.

    REPUBLICAN UPDATE: According to FiveThirtyEight, President Trump has won the Republican caucuses with 97 percent of the vote.

    UPDATE: Technical and “quality control” issues are standing in the way of finding out what happened at the caucuses. Iowa should either switch to a primary or lose its “first state to vote status.”

    Apparently, though, Iowa can remain first only if it sticks to caucuses. So New Hampshire should go first.

    UPDATE: As we approach 11:30 in the East, the delay continues. Reportedly, state party officials are briefing the campaigns about the matter. Maybe the Russians are to blame.

    Maybe the car with the “correct” caucus totals is buried under some snow somewhere.
    Except they are using some kind of phone app or something.

41. https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-warn-that-american-people-may-tamper-with-next-election

42. Okay, this one has absolutely no connection to the topic, but it is hilarious.

    https://babylonbee.com/news/new-star-trek-series-features-utopian-society-somehow-surviving-without-non-binary-pronouns

43. We could have nipped some of this Gramscian March thing in the bud if more college administrators had been like this one.

    https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2020/01/31/students-demanded-disinvestment-fossil-fuels-professor-offered-turn-off-heat/

    Two students at St John’s College wrote to Andrew Parker, the principal bursar, this week requesting a meeting to discuss the protesters’ demands, which are that the college “declares a climate emergency and immediately divests from fossil fuels”. They say that the college, the richest in Oxford, has £8 million of its £551 million endowment fund invested in BP and Shell.

    Professor Parker responded with a provocative offer. “I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice,” he wrote. “But I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect. Please let me know if you support this proposal.”

44. Very funny story inside this post.
    This is the party that wants complete control of your health care, among other things.
    I’m switching the updates to chronological order.

    https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/02/03/live-thread-hawkeye-cauci-upon-us/

    CNN is also now reporting that a few hours ago the state Democratic Party was “troubleshooting” the app designed to transmit precinct voting totals to state HQ. Uh oh. Little more from Nate Cohn:
    …
    Update: From the NYT: “Additionally, many precinct chairs across the state abandoned the new app that was built to help tabulate and report results as users struggled to log in. They opted instead to use the telephone hotline to report, which can also slow down the reporting of results.” Some political junkies are already grumbling on Twitter that this might be the final straw in convincing the two major parties to find a new state to go first in the presidential primary system. And of course, unless Sanders wins, some of his fans will insist that the “quality control” being done by the Iowa Democratic Party involves tinkering with the numbers to deprive their guy of victory.
    …
    Update: Lots of chatter on CNN right now about how this clusterfark will affect the candidates’ plans. Some of them have overnight flights to New Hampshire scheduled and aren’t sure whether to wait, go out and deliver a speech, or what have you. Others are speculating that the winner tonight will get little to no bounce from Iowa because news of their victory will break overnight and then immediately be crowded out by impeachment and the State of the Union.

    At a moment when public faith in American institutions is declining, what could be more fitting than a colossal screw-up in counting the votes for the very first election of the new presidential election cycle?
    …
    Update: Comedy gold — a precinct secretary who’d been on hold with the Iowa Democratic Party for an hour to report his results decided to call into CNN to complain while he was waiting. As he was talking to Wolf Blitzer on the air, you could hear the IDP receptionist in the background finally come on the phone on the other line. The precinct secretary tried saying goodbye to Blitzer so he could finally report his results. But he took too long and the receptionist … hung up.
    …
    Update: CNN just read a statement from the Iowa Democratic Party claiming that there were some “inconsistencies” in the three types of results they were receiving tonight — first alignment, final alignment, and delegates awarded. They need those numbers to match, obviously. They claim that there’s no hack of any sort, and they do have paper ballots from each precinct to make sure everything adds up. How long that will take, God only knows.
    …
    Update (Ed): We’ll have a lot more on this debacle tomorrow morning, but one of the biggest issues will be the loss of credibility in whatever numbers the Iowa Democratic Party produces. Joe Biden’s legal team has already fired a shot across their bow:

45. Couple of important points in this post (which does at least mention Sanders):
    https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/02/03/trump-dont-think-can-work-democrats-impeachment/

    More to the point, Donald Trump doesn’t think Democrats can work with him either. In his Super Bowl interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump complained bitterly about the “damage” done to his family and the country in the impeachment and trial. “I’d like to” work with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, Trump told Hannity, but they’re so dishonest and obsessed with winning that he doesn’t think it’s possible.
    That sounds like exactly what Pelosi and Schumer would say, too:
    …
    The solution, Trump tells Hannity, is to hash this out in an election rather than a food fight on Capitol Hill:
    …
    Under more normal circumstances, in a time when institutions had more credibility, an election would likely resolve most of the remaining tension, if not the bitterness. In such an environment, however, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders never would have been credible candidates for the presidency. An election in this environment might simply relocate the battlefield
    …
    The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher spoke with focus-group specialist Frank Luntz, who sounds pessimistic that an election will change anything at this point:

    By now, Frank Luntz figured that emotionally exhausted Americans would be hungry for unity, eager to embrace moderate messages and candidates who promised to find and claim common ground.

    But Luntz, a longtime Republican consultant who conducts focus groups for news organizations, has been taking the temperatures of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and other states, and he has found that “people are desperate to vote, but the center has collapsed.”

    “They want the pitchfork message, not the unity message — on both sides,” he said.

    “I wish I was wrong, but that fear of losing the country is deep and very emotional, on both sides,” Luntz added. “The Trump side believes the left is trying to overturn democracy, and they will fight like hell to prevent it. And the Democrats have a disdain for Donald Trump that I’ve never seen. This isn’t as bad as 1968, but it’s pretty damn bad.”

    One has to wonder whether F.A. Hayek would have recognized the parallels to his Road to Serfdom in this slow erosion of representative democracy.

    I’m sure Hayek would have noticed, especially with a Democratic slate of socialists and a full-on Communist in the primaries.

    This is the “relocated battlefield” Ed indicated –
    https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/02/03/new-plan-biden-wins-impeach-immediately-ukraine/

    This weekend, Joe Biden said that the ongoing impeachment follies “haven’t shaken his faith” in working with Republicans. We’ll need to check back with him later and see if that includes Joni Ernst. While Uncle Joe was talking about reaching across the aisle, the Iowa Senator did an interview with Bloomberg News this weekend. In it, she suggested that if Joe Biden somehow wins the nomination and then replaces Donald Trump in the Oval Office, he could potentially face immediate impeachment over his son Hunter’s activities at Burisma in Ukraine.

46. https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/02/03/and-now-kerry-media-in-uproar-over-possible-signs-ofsudden-candidate-syndrome-among-democrats/

    Meanwhile, Conservative Treehouse posits something like this: Kerry may enter the race at some point to immunize himself against any investigations related to Burisma and Ukraine, with which Kerry had a family member involved.

    We could add that Kerry’s interest in immunity might extend to any investigation of his dealings with Iran since he left his post in the Obama administration.

    The rule now, according to congressional Democrats and the media, is that if you’re running for president, the current administration can’t investigate you for anything because that would be a conflict of interest. It would be a corrupt activity, an abuse of power, if the sitting president were to investigate an electoral rival.

    If we’re just kicking things around here, that puts Hillary Clinton’s potential candidacy in an interesting light. Of course, it also suggests a reason why Joe Biden would stick it out as long as he possibly can, no matter what the results of the upcoming primaries.

    …
    In the absence of information on that head, there’s no need to go further with this line of thought. We can assume, again, that whatever noises we’re hearing about Sudden Candidacies are impelled by the specter of Bernie Sanders.

    An additional word on that. The Democrats aren’t just worried about Sanders not being electable. And the party leaders aren’t the only ones who are concerned. The problem with Bernie is that he doesn’t owe his electoral accomplishments, or his current viability, to either the DNC or the dark-money backers of the insurgents
    …
    For now, it’s bemusing to watch. The emerging Godzilla stalking the party apparatus is 78-year-old socialist Bernie Sanders. His chief rival in the not-completely-non-viable column is 77-year-old Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren, at 70, is the spring chicken of the high pollers, but her star is fading fast.

    The cavalry lining up over the hill is composed of 77-year-old Michael Bloomberg, a candidate of very limited appeal who has trouble keeping even wonks awake, and who is strategically eschewing the early primaries; 72-year-old Hillary Clinton, who lost in 2016 and missed the party nomination in 2008; and potentially 76-year-old John Kerry, who lost the presidential race in 2004.

    I’m reminded of the age-out flame-out of social democrats in Europe in the last decade, and chiefly of the abysmal showing of the social democrats in France in 2017. Someone found Emmanuel Macron to come bounding in from left field at the eleventh hour, a little known and very strange quantity. I don’t see a Macron on our horizon right now. But I wonder.

47. https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-america-needs-a-trump-vs-sanders-election_3219575.html

    Why America Needs a Trump Versus Sanders Election
    Roger L. Simon January 28, 2020 Updated: January 29, 2020

    I am pleased, not just because of the potential for an electoral college Armageddon that may or may not take place, or even because such an election would quickly put the bogus impeachment trial in the rearview mirror, but because, for the first time in decades, we would have a true election of opposites.

    This wouldn’t be a so-called “uni-party” election resulting in minor differences in the tax code, as it usually does.

    Trump versus Sanders would be capitalism versus socialism!

    And Sanders’s version of socialism is the real deal, and not socialism “lite,” amounting to a couple of instances of tweaked welfare legislation. Bernie is the man who chose to have his honeymoon in the Soviet Union and who still refuses to brand Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro a despot.

    Trump, of course, is a businessman-turned-president. There have been others, but, as never before, he is capitalism personified.
    It’s high time that something this serious, this contrasting, were put before the public. I say, bring it on.

    The battle would be epic.
    …
    Socialism is taken seriously by a large portion of America’s youth over several generations now. They have been taught that way from kindergarten through doctorate by an educational system that is largely socialistic in structure and ideology.

    The media has reinforced this viewpoint, as has the entertainment industry. Would Robert DeNiro, Rob Reiner, et al., be supporting Bernie over Donald, despite that being contrary to their class interest? Well, we know.

    Whose side would The New York Times and The Washington Post finally be on if it were Sanders versus Trump, not to mention the networks? They may have misgivings about Bernie, some of these outlets anyway, but their entrenched enmity for the president would undoubtedly prevail. They would “give socialism a shot.”

    Trump will have to counteract all this. He’ll have to explain to the public why the ”fairness” and “social justice” that’s seemingly so attractive in socialist rhetoric is misleading and that capitalism is a better way to uplift the lower and middle classes, and that societal wealth isn’t a zero-sum game.

    This won’t be easy for Donald—as a businessman, he’s a doer, not an educator—but he will have to learn how to do it, to slow down and perhaps be a bit didactic. He should explain, as Friederich Hayek did over a half-century ago, why socialism so often leads to totalitarianism.

    I would change “so often” to “always” of course.

48. Karma.
    It’s on the menu now.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbe938b9405563eb2a2c3ff9f2ff13637ce50eb503d4be748a480e74a2be0e8b.png

49. “I’m reminded of the age-out flame-out of social democrats in Europe in the last decade, and chiefly of the abysmal showing of the social democrats in France in 2017. Someone found Emmanuel Macron to come bounding in from left field at the eleventh hour, a little known and very strange quantity. I don’t see a Macron on our horizon right now. But I wonder.” – J. E. Dyer (see above)

    The eleventh-hour savior of the state didn’t work out so well for France.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/01/31/the-french-government-is-at-war-with-the-people/

    When Macron was elected in 2017, he was widely feted as the saviour of France. But many of his reforms have faced bitter opposition on the streets. One thing that has become clear over the past few years is that Macronism is almost too perfect an example of the neoliberal assault on the people. First, the government takes actions which would further erode already faltering or flatlining living standards – whether that was the proposed green taxes which sparked the first yellow-vest uprising, or the current raid on pensions. Then, when the people protest and strike against these changes, the police beat them up. Centrist authoritarianism assaults both living standards and liberty.

50. You would think that the Democrat voters would notice something wrong with this in their top candidate.
    But then, you would be wrong.

    https://freebeacon.com/issues/bernie-leads-2020-field-in-private-jet-spending/

    The Bernie Sanders campaign spent just under $1.2 million on private jet travel last quarter, outpacing the entire 2020 Democratic presidential primary field.
    …
    Sanders has long leaned on private air travel on the campaign trail, despite his belief that limiting carbon emissions from the transportation sector is crucial to combating climate change. Traveling by private jet is estimated to produce roughly eight times the amount of carbon per passenger as traveling by commercial airliner.

    “Global climate change is real, it is caused mainly by emissions released from burning fossil fuels and it poses a catastrophic threat to the long-term longevity of our planet,” he writes on his campaign website. “The transportation sector accounts for about 26 percent of carbon pollution emissions.”

    Sanders further claims on his website that “climate change is the single greatest threat facing our planet.”

51. Well, he might travel by private jet, but I know for a fact that after a recent, hours-long, soulful tete-a-tete with regrettable Greta, he decided that he was no longer going to eat beans.

    That’s right, Bernie has canceled beans. Categorically. No exceptions. (Not even roasted peanuts—BTW, I cannot believe that I’m the only one who believes that killing off Mr. Peanut at this point and time is more than overly suspicious…)

    This was a HUGE decision for him; moreover, he made it a condition for everyone on his staff and anyone who wishes to work with him. (They can consign Republicans to the Gulag but nary a legume will pass their progressive lips.)

    In further news, Murder, Inc., of yore, looks like it has morphed into Insanity, Inc.:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-might-trade-alaska-russians-cries-schiff-during-closing-impeachment-remarks
    https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/30/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-diversity-obama/index.html
    Etc….

52. We should be less worried about Sanders and more worried about AOC. In fact if Sanders wins now the country might get a vaccination against her. If they steal it from him, she’ll be the next D nominee. Unlike Sanders, she won’t back down and she’ll fight as dirty as she has to, and by dirty I mean Clinton-style dirty.

53. AOC and her supporters are already the soul of the Democratic Party activists. She’s on track to be a near term future Dem Party nominee.
    She’s terrible.

54. The President will deliver his State of the Union speech tonight . . . herewith a few thoughts why Sanders hasn’t a chance in the general election should he take the Dem nomination.

    In the SOTU President Trump will of course detail all his actions resulting in better conditions for America and her people. The list is long, substantive and ongoing. So much winning, so to speak.

    Then there are current challenges to be met, setting an agenda to come, such as dealing with the potential pandemic 2019-nCoV; further swamp draining (coming prosecutions in the Spygate affair, for instance); recovering trust in our legal institutions DoJ & FBI, perhaps ridding us of the FISC, which seems to be unreformable; restoring the primary mission of our spying institutions CIA & DNI (perhaps reorganizing these?); mucking out the State Department and the NSC. These — a non-exhaustive list — just to start.

    Then I expect a considerable roster of hailings out, such as a tribute to recently deceased Kobe Bryant, his daughter, Coach Altobelli, his family members and all others on that crashed copter; Rush Limbaugh’s just announced cancer troubles (so affording the Democrats another opportunity to display their vile churlishness); the UK’s Brexit escape to freedom (while perhaps dropping encouraging allusions to Hungary, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Greece, et al, along the way **Come! Join us in liberty my brothers and sisters of captive lands!**); the potential promise of prosperity the Palestinians can seize, along with the near immediate benefits the Israelis will see from his recently unveiled “peace plan”.

    Then in some measure both a hailing and a rebuking on the subject of the failed impeachment: a hailing of the Senate for its good political sense and a rebuking the Democrats for their lack of same. A hearty nose-twisting for Adam, Nancy and a few others is likely in order here.

    Energy and demonstrable competence, in other words, over-against Democrat incompetence (anew in Iowa!, to go with Spygate, Mueller, Impeachment and utter destitution in legislation from the House) in overflowing abundance.

    There’s too much simple good on the one hand, and good fun on the other, for Bernie to match.

55. Oh, and I forgot to mention: proposing to Congress to make an offer to the Danes for Greenland, mostly at this time for purposes of the joke setting off against Schiff’s fantasized sale of Alaska. So many cuts, so little time.

56. What is truly frightening and distressing re: NEO’s friend who is supporting Sanders – (Sanders; an unreformed communist who honey-mooned in and praised the USSR while it was still being ruled by those who earned their stripes during Stalin’s mass terror/exterminations of up to 30 MILLION souls) – is that this friend is most likely highly educated.

    One can only surmise that this friend, and those like him/her, are totally ignorant of history; and they are voters.

    The lesson of Venezuela is that the people have the “opportunity” to freely and willingly vote for a national suicide.

    Any sentient human realizes that a President Sanders (who became a millionaire while in public “service” and who apparently never held a real job in his entire life) would literally destroy the US economy and put MILLIONS of workers on the dole.
    Sanders obviously does not care what results his policies produce and apparently NEO’s friend also does not care.

    At the risk of appearing to be one hell of an angry nut job,I can only hope that if Sanders does in fact become president, NEO’s friend will suffer an economic catastrophe equal to that suffered by the many millions who will be rendered unemployed and who will suffer drastic reductions in personal income.

    In 1914 , Germany had one of the highest standards of living on earth and and one of the most educated citizenry on earth; along with great scientists, etc.
    A series of real bad decisions by their leadership and the German PEOPLE !!! produced a disaster for them and the world that took over 30 years before it hit rock bottom.
    The lesson here is that no matter how well things are going , the entire edifice can plummet into the abyss and that NO NATION is immune to a home grown and home directed catastrophe.

    “Those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.”

57. If Trump could win Sanders could win, and for the same reasons. The electorate thinks the ruling class is morally and intellectually bankrupt.

    I sum up today’s political landscape as kayfabe. The D’s faces are the R’s heels and vice versa. Meanwhile the unelected paper-pushers in government and academia and big business run things as they see fit.

    AOC is a D face / R heel. Nothing she says or does is of any consequence. Sanders is in it for real and he’s not wanted. But he’ll give the paper-pushers everything they want.

58. SueK on February 3, 2020 at 6:16 pm said: I’m curious to know if people who like him as a candidate are simply unaware of his Communist connections, or if they think Communism is a good form of government, or if they’re just totally ignorant of Communism.

    IF you pay attention to the Veritas videos of Bernie supporters they are poor apologists for the soviet union and its ways. They believe that gulags and re-education camps are a ‘necessary evil’ in the face of people like patriots and Trump supporters… or they openly think that the stories of the camps were large political exagerations and not the opposite (toned down and realities hidden, which they were actually).

    They would never read things like “Dear God I Wanted to Live” or know that the gulags were often and mostly women as the men were conscripted to the war efforts… they would not watch “Melanie” a similar story as the other… or remember famous changers the way Ronald Regan did (and neo didnt) with Freda Utley and her books – especially “The Dream we Lost”. Regardless of how THESE sources and information are actually free for anyone to read (except Dear God I Wanted to Live – which is ignored to insure only one novel of that type is known and is anti-nazi, not anti-soviet!!!).

    Bernie has no fear, because even those who would side against it, or want to learn about it… Self censor and help bury it. for whatever reason, as reasons are irrelevant except to convince, the things that would teach and inform the most are avoided!!! If a great woman who: Betrand Russel… George Banard Shaw… Ronald Reagan… Pearl Buck… and a whole parade more, means neo and others are disinterested in exploring that changer, why would people like Bernie have any fears?

    Ronald Reagan (speech writer) maybe had it best: “many of the intellectuals didn’t want to hear what she had to say. She had impressive academic credentials when she came to the U.S. but publishers and the academy closed doors against her. She understood all too well. She had tried communism and learned its falseness. She said only those ‘who have never fully committed themselves to the communist cause’ can continue to believe in it.”

    We instead listen to Mamon, and Lessing… neither of which were as well educated, had the full life, and were in the core middle of those who put us where we are now…

    “It is a strongly unassailable indictment of Russian Communism. It is a strongly dramatic story and one interesting enough to make a major novel, the story of a brilliant mind, rigorously truthful in its working….” – Pearl Buck

    WHY would Bernie fear anything if even those who are interested help erase such people? Why bother to even start a study on such a thing as changers if one is going to ignore the greatest ones who are now mostly erased and so stand as a proof to the power that then moves things? Bernie knows if he stands on the other side, he will be erased… so he has every reason to stand on the side he does, and do what he does, as that same process, that even keeps neo (for whatever reason she cogitates) from exploring the past history and being fully informed in detail in her search, protects him…

    Her very existence if known would make people uncomfortable and more knowing! the lies of feminism writ large from her own education, the lies of communism laid bare by someone, who like bernie, went to the soviet union and embraced the bear fully…

    and why would we want to know the truth?
    for this is not a search for truth, if it was it would be embraced
    this is a search for entertainment… and truth is not entertaining…

    Utley warned: …that America’s support of Israel would drive the Arab countries into the waiting arms of the communists.

    but how could she be heard in the Isreal discussion? she is erased
    why would Bernie have any fear of the kids knowing anything, Iserbyte who warned us is erased
    Instead for us to read Allan Bloom not knowing where he derived his ideas given his age and hers and how to him, she had not been erased… kind of like how Bob Dylan became a big thing for stealing a lot from people like Blind Willi McTell..

    Why go to the horses mouth?

    College Student Alert: Beware of One-Party Classrooms
    https://eagleforum.org/psr/2009/apr09/psrapr09.html
    The cultural Marxists have been teaching college students long enough to deceive two generations. The abuses of the liberal arts curriculum were set forth 20 years ago by Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind and nearly 50 years ago by E. Merrill Root in Collectivism on the Campus.

    Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism
    by Alfred S. Regnery

    In the 1950s and 1960s, America was in the heyday of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, and very few conservative books were published. One courageous businessman, Henry Regnery, put his fortune on the line to publish conservative books. Regnery’s books gave us the truth about Communist strategy and tactics (William Henry Chamberlin, Louis Budenz, Freda Utley, Anthony Bouscaren), Soviet slave labor camps (Elinor Lipper), U.S.-Soviet agreements (George Crocker), the United Nations (Chesly Manly), and education (William F. Buckley, M. Stanton Evans).

    Why bother to read where Zinn got his stuff from, you can read the later work
    why know about who set the foundations of what is happening now? keep us from feeling hopeless?

59. How anyone can like the person that is the scowling, angry, yelling, hectoring old man that is Bernie Sanders is beyond me, but the young aged 18 to 29 overwhelmingly do.
    They represent the triumph of Antonio Gramsci.

60. I don’t frequent The Onion, but I saw a reference elsewhere to an item there, to the effect of “DNC tries to get Trump to run as a Democrat to beat Sanders.”

61. Sure, anything could happen but it’s not too damn likely. Yes, Bernie will get the college kids’ vote and the suburban women’s vote and the black vote (not nearly as much as last time, particularly among African-American men) but who else’s vote?

    He already lost much of the union vote; the only union members who will vote for him will be the teachers and the government workers. He’s already legacy-lost the cops (see Hilary’s loss of the FOP and the Border Patrol officers union), as well as the coal miners’ (“Anybody who can mine for coal 300 feet under the surface can learn to code”), probably most of the trade unions (infrastructure, baby, infrastructure!), energy workers, small businessmen and -women, farmers, and more.

    How many intellectuals, movie stars, college kids, and other nitwits do you think there are? I predict pretty much the same electoral picture as last time, except with more red and less blue.

62. Artfldgr said:
    “IF you pay attention to the Veritas videos of Bernie supporters they are poor apologists for the soviet union and its ways. ”

    Actually, you said a whole lot more than that – and all worthwhile – but one thing you failed to mention was US history. No one seems to note or remember that the Pilgrims started out as communists. And failed. After 2 years (I think) and many deaths, they gave it up to allow individuals to profit from their own efforts, and their settlement prospered.

    And an “oh yeah”… I didn’t see a mention of Bella Dodd. She’s a good one to research as well as the others you mentioned.

63. SueK:

    Artfldgr has written a GREAT many comments here in the past about Bella Dodd. Here are some examples, if you’re interested: this and this, just to take two examples.

    The blog has a search function, so that readers can search blog posts. But unfortunately, it’s hard if not impossible for readers to search comments. As the blog owner, I have some ability to do that, although it can be somewhat difficult because often too many choices come up.

64. What do you think about Bernie Sanders?
    TRUMP: “He’s a Communist.”

    Game. Set. Match.

65. Thank you for the Bella Dodd links..

    I think she’s important.

66. sdferr on February 4, 2020 at 9:11 am said:
    The President will deliver his State of the Union speech tonight . . . herewith a few thoughts why Sanders hasn’t a chance in the general election should he take the Dem nomination.
    * * *
    Remind me not to buy any crystal balls from you — although everything you said needs to be said — but you did get Rush right.
    What a great moment — I don’t think he expected the Medal to be awarded to him right then and there.

67. Cicero on February 4, 2020 at 1:14 pm said:
    How anyone can like the person that is the scowling, angry, yelling, hectoring old man that is Bernie Sanders is beyond me, but the young aged 18 to 29 overwhelmingly do.
    They represent the triumph of Antonio Gramsci.
    * * *
    Good story from Boston; and two good graphics from the comments, illustrating the difference between Trump’s and Sanders’ supporters: they are like their heroes.

    https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/02/04/and-the-winner-of-the-democratic-iowa-caucuses-is-donald-trump/

    https://i.imgflip.com/2vur0c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64f8114876695581beac8fe9b56de69cecb40c73b2fd5a5c7ced234290149c1b.jpg

68. When you lose your own Speaker of the House…
    https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/03/nancy-pelosi-defeat-democrats-reach-left/

    “There’s plenty of progressive work that we can do in the mainstream without, um, shall we say, having the luxury of our exuberances in carving up a pie we don’t even have,” she said.

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