A friend of mine has mused that the Democrats should have lost the last
election on purpose-- the country was going to hell as a result of George
Bush's incompetence and there would be hell to pay and most people are too
stupid to connect policies and consequences and delayed consequences, so
whoever was in charge at the moment would get the blame.
My theory is that the Democrats did try to lose the election.
They almost nominated a woman, realized she might win, thought better of it,
and nominated a black man instead. Ridiculously, he won anyway.
There really, somewhere, should be a picture of John McCain sitting in an
easy chair smiling. Smiling away.... Well, he should be
smiling-- instead, he seems bitter. Does he seriously believe that he
could have come up with a plan that would have balanced the budget and
reduced unemployment to 7% by now? Sure-- by cutting taxes for the
richest 1% of the population.
February 12, 2010
The Vanity Fair piece on Palin is fascinating if only for a glimpse on that
perennial American political paradox: how millionaire white American
capitalists inevitably campaign for politcal office as "just folks" and try --
and often succeed in painting their Democrat opponents as "elitists".
Sarah Palin is America's Evita in that regard-- the poor little aw shucks hockey
mom with down home values and divinely inspired common sense. How far that
can take you in federal politics if you don't even know who Margaret Thatcher is
(presumably, she does now) is the question to be answered in 2012.
Palin owes her power to identity politics, pitched
with moralistic topspin. She exploits the same populist impulse that fueled
the career of William Jennings Bryan—an impulse described by one Bryan
biographer as “the yearning for a society run by and for ordinary people who
lead virtuous lives.” From Vanity Fair, September 2010
Is it even remotely possible that this dangerous lunatic could end up as
President of the United States? The story is that she is preparing a run, setting up
fundraising bodies, collecting direct-mail lists, distributing IOU's to any number of
Republican House and Senate candidates. That looks like groundwork. This looks like
someone who believes her own (selected) press. I am so smart that even I don't know
how smart I am. Everybody who matters knows how smart I am.
There is something seriously demented about American politics. Americans hate their
government. They believe that Washington is full of idiots and liars. These
are the people they elected. Okay-- so we were a tricked. These people were good when I voted
for them, and then they got corrupted by Washington.
So a new guy comes along and says
I won't get corrupted. I'm going to clean out Washington. So they elect him. Two years
later they hate him too. They hate him so much that when he spends $30 million smothering
the state with ads declaring that his opponent is a child-molester and a heretic, they
vote for him again. That's all it takes, apparently, to fool the American voter. $30 million,
supplied by the lobbyists representing the companies that persuaded their
representative to do their bidding instead of the voters'.
So ask these voters, what's ruining this country? Those damn unpatriotic
foreigners! Feminists! People who don't wear American
flags in their lapels. Moslems! Mexicans! Homosexuals!
My friends, there isn't a single Mexican in the country who can pay your
Congressman enough money to do his will-- but that's who you're upset about?
You complain about the government wasting money on roads and schools, while
they build billions of dollars of weapons for imaginary enemies?
You have been driven into massive debts and bankruptcy and you've lost your
job and your house because of the actions of greedy, dishonest American
investment bankers, and you don't like Obama because he's smart and thinks
he's better than you?
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© Bill Van Dyk
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