While burning down the world around them, revolutionaries in 1790s France hoarsely screamed, “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!” Well, it’s been over two centuries since the guillotine took center stage, and the descendants of Rousseau’s savage man have an ideological program that hasn’t really been altered since the Reign of Terror. Granted, with “boyhood” as a synonym, “Fraternity” has been replaced with more gender-neutral words. What hasn’t been replaced is the consuming desire to destroy all institutions, whether those institutions have been ordained by God or by man.
Led by Bernie Sanders, the progressive army is in the midst of a scorched earth campaign that seeks to leave any opposition writhing on scaffolds that have been decorated with coexist stickers.
While having a different ideological starting point than progressives, the other extreme of this country’s widening divide has the objective of tearing down existing institutions, too. Donald Trump supporters believe that the society has betrayed them, wants to see them under the thumb of undocumented workers, and will eventually force them into same-sex marriages in ceremonies that will be held inside of mosques. They are scared, angry, and desperate. So desperate, in fact, that Trumpkins believe that the best course of action to “Make America Great” again is to root out all opposition to their goals and hoist them on a petard covered with kitschy gold leaf adorned with an extra-large-yet-totally-not-compensating-for-something “T.”
Unfortunately, for both Trumpkins and those who feel the Bern, many in this country are selfishly *cough* averse to tearing everything down. Regardless of whether the two sides’ starting gates align, their “kissing cousins” desire to destroy the existing society is facing an obstacle that is probably going to prove too formidable of an opponent. However, there is a solution: combine forces.
A Sanders/Trump ticket (or Trump/Sanders ticket, I’m sure that they can reasonably hash it out) would be too much idiocy passion to stop.
For the sake of authorial integrity, I should clarify that I understand that extremists on the left and extremists on the right appear to be working at cross purposes. The revered institutions that the two sides want to destroy aren’t always the same. But the endgames of both will work out to ensure the destruction of our entire way of life; that’s what’s important.
For example, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump demonstrate an admirable contempt for basic economic theory. And their preferred candidate’s disdain for sound economics seems to be a major plus for both Bernites and Trumpkins. Basically, every discussion I have with individuals who feel the Bern ends with the Bernite whining, “But, but … economics is hard!” And, Trumpkins appear to believe that initiating a global trade war fits neatly under their stated goal to “Make American Great Again.” Apparently, “great” means much higher consumer costs and bread lines. Clearly Trumpkins and Bernites have a common endgame.
Regarding Trump’s economic prowess, or lack thereof, here’s a thought: if debtors’ prisons still existed in the United States, Donald Trump would be conducting his campaign from inside of a jail cell. Thankfully for Mr. Trump, this country has switched to lenient bankruptcy laws.
Trump’s bankruptcies are known by all; his many failed business ventures have been turned into viral memes. And his puzzling economic policies have caused conservative economists, including Mark Zandi, Ben Stein, and Thomas Sowell, to warn that America’s economy will crash and burn if Trump is allowed to make America into his own image. According to the National Journal, Trump would’ve made more money if he had simply invested his inheritance instead of trying his hand at business. But in the face of all this economic malaise, Trumpkins continue to fall into goose-stepping line behind their economically challenged leader. During a CBS interview this past December Bernie Sanders, recognizing a kindred spirit, attempted to woo Trump voters by appealing to mutual economic goals and similarities. He apparently noticed that legitimate economic policies only impede Trumpkins’ desire to destroy everything,
The seemingly unholy marriage of Trumpkins with Uncle Bernie actually makes sense within the progressives’ desired brave new world. Glibly demonstrating as cavalier an attitude toward economics as Trump, Uncle Bernie has caravanned around the country promoting an agenda that reeks of more than a whiff of Venezuela. Regardless of what descriptor is placed before the word socialist – be it democratic, liberal, or national – the fact remains that the government controls the means of production. Socialism is as socialism does. In other words, Bernie’s democratic socialism fails, like all other “forms” of socialism, to understand, much less allow for, the fact that wealth does not create itself. This inconvenient fact plagued the Sanders campaign when the news leaked that Bernie pays his interns less than the coveted $15 an hour minimum wage that he constantly demands. Apparently, even the democratic socialist god Bernie Sanders can’t create wealth ex nihilo.
Even members of his own party are begging Bernie to stop talking about economics. In a New York Times op-ed titled “Varieties of Voodoo,” famed liberal Paul Krugman wrote, “By endorsing outlandish economic claims, the Sanders campaign is basically signaling that it doesn’t believe its program can be sold on the merits, that it has to invoke a growth miracle to minimize the downsides of its vision. It is, in effect, confirming its critics’ worst suspicions.” Krugman ends his intervarsity tongue lashing with a plea to Sanders to stop promoting the voodoo economics that have bewitched extreme leftists.
Setting aside Krugman’s own outlandish economics, the point remains that Bernie Sanders holds to an extreme version of an economic ideology that is detrimental to the goals of other liberals. This is why some of my high-ranking GOP friends are secretly rooting for Bernie. On the growing chance that the Republican Party is going to screw up 2016, Bernie will make a president that his own party can’t stand; the damage that he can accomplish will be minimal. This is why Bernie Sanders needs Donald Trump, and vice versa.
The candidates have a shared vision for the future of free speech. The First Amendment and Donald Trump have trouble coexisting together. Trump has made it clear that he has his sights set on the media’s freedom of the press, claiming in a Fox News interview that media outlets that criticize him will “have problems.” This coincides with the large percentage of millennials who believe that the First Amendment is a threat to tolerance. As The Federalist pointed out, the vast majority of millennials support Bernie. It’s a First Amendment-hating match made in progressive hell.
Donald Trump’s disregard for the First Amendment combined with his bull in a China shop personality will make the perfect complement to Bernie Sanders. Trump doesn’t care for the Constitution, as evidenced by his promise to wield the presidential pen as a weapon. Bernie Sanders believes that the Constitution should yield to the will of the fragile minority who frets over micro-aggressions. With the weapon of executive order, a willingness to disregard all economic common sense, their combined hatred for the Constitution, and a hubristic bluster that makes them impervious to logic, a Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump ticket could accomplish the very thing that Bernites and Trumpkins desire – the destruction of everything that average, non-extremist Americans hold dear. The amount of damage that could be done by Bernie/Trump 2016 is actually impressive, and would make both Bernites and Trumpkins proud.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member