Leo Tolstoy opened his novel Anna Karenina with the observation that, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
After having watched the first two Democrat debates, I would like to amend Tolstoy’s dictum: Sane politicians may be alike, but each Democrat on the stage last week was insane in his/her/its own way.
Consider Marianne Williamson.
Enough said.
No, seriously. Her big idea is that she will govern with the Power of Love. (And yes, when asked to name her most admired political philosopher, she named Huey Lewis, circa 1985.)
Or consider the following Democrats on stage in one of the two nights: Tim Ryan, Jay Inslee, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet.
I am more of a political junkie than most, and I don’t know who any of those people are. Though to be fair, all of these nobodies would make better presidents than any of the top tier (?) Dem candidates, if only because it would be metaphysically impossible to do worse.
Bernie Sanders’ act has now become old hat. I mean VERY old hat. As in those steel, pointed-at-both-ends conquistador hats. Four years ago he ran as a 104-year-old man, and although only four years have passed, he is now somehow 112. When I hear “Bernie 2020,” I momentarily catch myself wondering if that is his age.
But it’s not just his age that disqualifies him, of course. It’s that his ideas – which were way too extreme four years ago – have now been coopted by the 20+ dwarves around him. So if you are a leftist dolt who loves socialism, why not choose one of the others who has a decent chance of surviving through at least one term as president, rather than the wild-haired crank who is likely to plotz halfway through his inaugural address?
How about Eric Swalwell?
Ugh. First, his last name bugs me. It sounds like “small” and “swell,” and somehow both of those associations feel right about him. More substantively, Little E knows better than you do whether you should be able to have a gun, like the constitution says. (Spoiler alert: you shouldn’t.) His big moment was to remind everyone that he’s a lot younger than Joe Biden.
Well guess what, Eric? Everybody (other than Bernie, and Mummy Pelosi, if she’s around) within a 100-mile radius is younger than Joe Biden. That’s not reason enough to vote for you.
Speaking of “no reason to vote for someone,” how about that giant, terrible mayor of NYC – the leftist mayor so bad that even New York leftists don’t like him. His name should actually be spelled phonetically – “duh” plus “blah” and then “zio” – because you can’t think of him without a “blah” and an even bigger “duh.”
But he had good company on the first night, when one of the partisan hack moderators – it doesn’t matter which one – asked for a show of hands from those who would abolish private health insurance in favor of government health care, and only Grandma Squanto joined him. Put on your ceremonial face paint and do your death dance, Lizzie, because you have just disqualified yourself from the presidency.
Or she should have, if half of the electorate wasn’t crazy for Crazy Horse. (Worst breakfast cereal jingle ever.) (Also, #wemustneverstopmockingher)
But she seems to have gotten a bump out of her debate performance, which surprises me, even though she is plainly being helped by a combination of the MSM pushing her candidacy, and the far-left audience’s eating up her far-left prescriptions. She gets such an absurd amount of credit for her ridiculous “I’ve got a plan for that!” nostrum.
It’s easy to have a plan for every situation, when the plan is identical for every situation: more government intervention!
You know who else has a plan for every situation? A none-too-bright toddler with a square peg in each chubby little hand, sitting in a room, surrounded by toy boards filled with round holes. If you walked into that room and saw little AOC (I’ll call her, hypothetically), pounding her square peg ineffectually against all of the round holes, you’d say, “Sweetie, what are you doing there?”
And she’d say, “I got… I gotta… I got plan.”
And you’d say, “What’s your plan?” And she’d slam the pegs manically against the holes for two minutes straight, never seeming to tire of her futile task.
And you’d say, “Why don’t you take your Ritalin and a nap, and stay far, far away from the white house?”
My favorite moment of the first night was when Skateboarding Doofus got his first question about tax rates, and started yammering a non-answer in Spanish. It was such a cheesy and idiotic move, and I’ve come to expect nothing less from Mr. Wild Gesticulator. (Worst Spiderman villain ever.) Does he not understand that even though a lot of people in this country speak Spanish, the vast majority of them also speak English – and the vast majority of Americans do NOT speak Spanish? And that he’s running for President of America?
We American voters get irritated when our ATM makes us opt out of Spanish before we can withdraw cash. (“Am I in Tijuana?” I incredulously ask my 17-year-old daughter, who rolls her eyes and says, “Let me guess, dad. The bank wants to know if you want to proceed in Spanish?” And I put on a wide-eyed, exaggerated look of Cory Booker-esque confusion as I bend to look into the card slot, “Do you think this machine thinks it is in Chiapas?” And my daughter looks to the skies and says, “Dios Mio!” I raise my hand to her and say, “Give me cinco,” but she turns on her heel to go wait in the car. )
(And, scene.)
That being the case, how do you think most of us feel when we can’t watch a bunch of socialists bicker and beclown themselves without keeping an English-Spanish dictionary handy?
I really enjoyed the incredulous look that Spartacus gave La Beta, so much so that I almost had a brief moment of respect for Spartacus, thinking that he might be on the verge of calling out Beta’s ridiculous pandering with the Spanish talk. But the moment passed, when Booker then started speaking in Spanish too! By the time Julian Castro started with the “me llamo Sweaty Loser,” it was old sombrero (HA!), but at least he had the excuse of actually being Hispanic.
Beta’s espanol moment taught me three things:
- There is nothing that that goofball won’t do to pander to a minority audience.
- He still didn’t answer the straightforward question, proving that he’s not just vacuous – he’s bilingually vacuous!
- I am indeed not cut out to run for the president on the leftist moron ticket. If I found myself on that stage, and then out of nowhere all of my competitors started speaking Spanish, I would first wonder whether they were having strokes, and then realize how screwed I was.
Because I’d have to fall back on all of the Spanish I learned as a kid. I would stammer, “Silencio, por favor, Martino.” And then mutter, “Yo quiero, taco bell.” And then mumble, “Aye, yi yi yi, I am the Frito Bandito!” And then be pelted off stage for my crude racial stereotyping.
More to come in Part 2…
Martin Simpson 