Ronald Reagan famously said, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.”
Now it’s left the rest of us.
If every candidate on stage raising their hands for free healthcare for illegal aliens during the first MSNBC debate wasn’t enough to brand the party and its faithful as a collection of virtue-signaling lemmings, the subsequent CNN debates should have finished the job.
Or should I say debates or game shows? They were basically contests for who could go the furthest left. It’s amazing Groucho Marx’s duck wasn’t coming down during their answers. On “You Bet Your Life,” Groucho used to tell his guests “Say the secret word and you win $100” and a duck with eyebrows, glasses, and a cigar would float down with the cash.
Unfortunately, all Wednesday’s Democrats knew the secret word in advance — “RACIST!!!” Too easy. So they would have to have divided $100 between them. Not much money and not much suspense.
The second secret word was, of course, “impeachment.” This was a CNN debate after all and it was a small miracle they went for an hour and a half or so without mentioning the “I” word, perhaps a first for the network in the last two years.
The second night began with a stupefying discussion of healthcare that was unclear on every level. But then no one ever talks honestly about healthcare since no system is perfect, even remotely. Of course, CNN would never dare ask a question about the failures of the National Health in the UK because the American public might learn something.
On global warming… excuse me, climate change… it was a bidding war over how soon we were due for Armageddon. It seemed to have been won on the first night by Beto O’Rourke with ten… take that, AOC… until Governor Inslee arrived on the second night to scare the pants off anyone with the warning we were all going to be french fries sometime early next week. That this brainless competition was conducted by people with little or no scientific expertise was of no consequence. It was the (lack of) thought that counted.
About immigration, the less said the better. Everyone on stage was somewhere between insane and incoherent. On the question of open borders, it was the old song, “First you say you do, but then you don’t.” But then you really do.
No one on stage either night seemed remotely presidential, though Tulsi Gabbard made sense on occasion, especially when she destroyed the hypocritical Harris. Also (sexist alert), she looked great. Gabbard is surprisingly appealing until she says something so weird you begin to think she’s a member of some Hawaiian cult, as when she muttered something about Trump working for al Qaeda.
As for the socialists, Sanders and Warren, they are so hectoring and humorless I’d promise to write out The Communist Manifesto or even Das Kapital by hand a hundred times if they’d only shut up. And speaking of communists, don’t believe the religious nonsense. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a Gramscian (i .e red atheist) in disguise. Apples don’t fall that far from the tree. Look it up.
I think we can spare ourselves the pain of more of these debates and give the Dem nomination to Biden. He’s an old-school, doddering party hack. But at least he doesn’t seem out of his mind.
Roger L. Simon’s new novel — THE GOAT — can be pre-ordered on Amazon after August 9.
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