My fellow Hoosiers have voted and they gave the tree quite a shake. Senator Ted "Let Me At 'Im" Cruz* has retired his campaign in favor of Donald Trump -- the same guy he was decrying as an amoral Danger To The Republic a day or two earlier. On the other team, Senator Sanders, having squeaked past Secretary Clinton on a 52/48 percent split, is calling his a "great victory."
Looks like we want to see Hugo Chavez vs. Mussolini in Indiana, no? Pundits are pointing in awe and wonder at the "deep divide" in American politics.
As usual, they're full of it. Here's how it works: Secretary Clinton and Senator Cruz are seen as Washington Insiders, part of The Establishment. (This is a bit unfair to Ted Cruz, but the perception is there). Mr. Trump and Senator Sanders are seen as outsiders, mavericks, men who'll take The System by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking. (This view, too, is a bit askew from reality but nevertheless real.) The ends of the bell curve won in Indiana based on something the voters have in common.
Take my state as a rough microcosm for the nation (we're a bit to the right of center, but we're that way on the map, too.) Americans are tired of "business as usual," of "same old same old." King Stork looks way more interesting the King Log.
...There's that old saw about "interesting times," but here we are. And the times certainly are becoming interesting.
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* I will note that "scary weirdos in the washrooms" did not appear to be nearly as effective an election ploy as "scary border-sneaks." This may be in part because, panic aside, most people understand that criminal deviant conduct is as illegal in California's la-la land as it is in North Carolina; this was the case before NC decided to police the bathrooms exactly as much as it is afterwards. On the other hand, ill-intentioned foreigners who want to kill U.S. citizens and blow stuff up is a much more evening-news-featured story, with plenty of examples from 2001 to present. You know what the actual danger hiding behind theses drastically oversimplified and over-inflated issue have in common? Armed citizens serve as at least something of a deterrent. Pervs and jihadis fear citizen response.
Mussolini, ha ha, that's very funny. I disagree with your analogy, but even so, better a Mussolini than a Chavez, or a Lenin. I look at whose political rallies the Spartacists, oops I mean the Bernie Sanders voters, have been trying to break up and shut down with violence, and notice they only seem to see one man as a threat.
ReplyDeleteMonty James
I see them both as threats. And HRH, too.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks a Mussolini is good for what ails America is not thinking clearly.
ReplyDeleteEvery major party candidate left on the table is, at some level, a closet -- or maybe not so much of a closet -- fascist. How do you feel about that, Monty?
I think it would be pretty easy to point to one as being something to worry about, and that of course would be the hard Left radical; what would happen if she were allowed to make a Supreme Court nomination is the most obvious point I might raise. If you have anything to flesh out your simple assertion about the other fella I might change my mind about him. As things stand now, I think the chances of keeping the Leftist out of office got better last night.
ReplyDeleteMonty James
Ah, "We have no enemies on the Right," to mirror an old phase. Really?
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons the UK was so very late in awakening to the dangers of Nazism and a re-armed Germany was that the ruling classes thought crazy Mr. Hitler formed an *excellent* bulwark against creeping Communism. The GOP has all-but-picked a man who has recently boasted "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters," and you don;t find him a little bit problematic?
We all make our tradeoffs. Just be very clear what you're trading away -- and why.
I have found it interesting that all four candiates have got, to a greater orlesser degree, at least one "bogeyman" group to point out. The rich, gun-owners, people who use the wrong bathroom, muslims, or some combination thereof. This is deeply flawed thinking and they're all doing it. Compared to, oh, Richard Nixon's campaign or even Barack Obama's, they exhibit a spookily uniform negativity, with a subtext of "Bad People are out to do Bad Things to Us and I am your One Best Hope to stop them."
This worries me.